Trials Together (Book Two): The Scorch Trials
by msnoname24
Summary: The second book of my Trials Together series where Group A and Group B are combined. You must read that to understand this.
1. Chapter 1

_Hey, are you still asleep?_ Teresa spoke in Thomas's mind.

 _What time is it?_

 _No idea, I wanna talk to someone, I can't get to sleep. Rachel told me to go away and Aris is refusing to respond._

 _So, I'm your last choice?_ Thomas couldn't help feeling slightly hurt at that.

 _No, I sent that first message to everyone._

 _Well no wonder they're annoyed._ Thomas wasn't exactly thrilled to have been awoken just because Teresa couldn't sleep, but he didn't want her to stop talking to him either.

 _Why can't you sleep?_ He continued.

 _I keep thinking of Grievers, how are we going to get it all out of our heads?_ That Thomas didn't know, however much he wished there was an easy answer none materialised.

Those images would never leave―the Gladers would be haunted by the horrible things that had happened in the Maze for the rest of their lives. He figured that most if not all of them would have major psychological problems. Maybe even go completely nutso.

And above it all, he had one image burned into his memories as strongly as a branded mark from a searing hot iron. His friend Chuck, stabbed in the chest, bleeding, dying as Thomas held him.

Thomas knew he would never forget that. But what he said to Teresa was: _It'll go away. Just takes a little time, that's all._

 _You're so full of it_ , she said.

 _I know._ How ridiculous was it that he loved hearing her say something like that to him? That her sarcasm meant things were going to be okay? _You're an idiot_ , he told himself, then hoped she didn't hear that thought.

 _Go to sleep Thomas._ The irritation in Rachel's voice told him that if he was in reach she would have punched him. That meant he had somehow sent that message to everyone, wonderful. Aris was doing what Teresa had said: either shut himself off from the telepathy completely or was just ignoring them.

 _I hate that they separated us._ That made Thomas smile in the darkness, the people here didn't trust teenage boys and girls to share sleeping space, which was amusing, in the Glade it had been the norm.

 _Guess we'll have to get used to it._

 _Yeah_. Teresa's sigh was audible.

Neither of them spoke for a few minutes, Thomas could feel himself drifting back off to sleep. He could feel her presence, sense that she was close, it was a great comfort.

He had no concept of time passing while in that state. Half asleep, half enjoying her presence and the thought that they'd been rescued from that horrible place. That they were safe, that he and Teresa could get to know each other all over again. That life could be good.

Blissful sleep. Hazy darkness. Warmth. A physical glow. Almost floating.

The world seemed to fade away. All became numb and sweet. And the darkness, somehow comforting. He slipped into a dream.

 _He's very young. Four, maybe? Five? Lying in a bed with blankets pulled to his chin._

 _A woman sits next to him, her hands folded in her lap. She has long brown hair, a face just beginning to show signs of age. Her eyes are sad. He knows this even though she's trying very hard to hide it with a smile._

 _He wants to say something, ask her a question. But he can't. He's not really here. Just witnessing it all from a place he doesn't quite understand. She begins to talk, a sound so simultaneously sweet and angry it disturbs him._

 _"I don't know why they chose you, but I do know this. You're special somehow. Never forget that. And never forget how much"―her voice cracks and tears run down her face―"never forget how much I love you."_

 _The boy replies, but it's not really Thomas speaking. Even though it is him. None of it makes sense. "Are you gonna be crazy like all those people on TV, Mommy? Like ... Daddy?"_

 _The woman reaches out and runs her fingers through his hair. Woman? No, he can't call her that. This is his mother. His ... mommy._

 _"Don't you worry about that, honey," she says. "You won't be here to see it."_

 _Her smile has gone away._

Too fast the dream faded into blackness, leaving Thomas in a void with nothing but his thoughts. Had he seen another memory crawl up from the depths of his amnesia? Had he really seen his mom? There'd been something about his dad being crazy. The ache inside Thomas was deep and gnawing, and he tried to sink further into oblivion.

Later―how much later he had no idea―Teresa spoke to him again.

 _Tom, something's wrong._

That was how it started. He heard Teresa say those three words, but it seemed from far away, as if spoken down a long and cluttered tunnel. His slumber had become a viscous liquid, thick and sticky, trapping him. He became aware of himself, but realized he was removed from the world, entombed by exhaustion. He couldn't wake up.

 _Thomas!_ Teresa screamed it, somewhere he thought he heard Rachel. Aris jerking out of sleep on the bunk above him, but this was all in the real world, not the dream-limbo state where Thomas was somehow trapped.

it had to be a dream. Teresa was fine, they were all fine. He relaxed again, let himself drown in slumber.

Other sounds snuck their way into his consciousness. Thumps. The clang of metal against metal. Something shattering. Boys shouting. More like the echo of shouts, very distant, muted. Suddenly they became more like screams. Unearthly cries of anguish. But still distant. As if he'd been wrapped in a thick cocoon of dark velvet.

Finally, something pricked the comfort of sleep. This wasn't right. Teresa had called for him, told him something was wrong! He fought the deep sleep that had consumed him, clawed at the heavy weight pinning him down.

 _Wake up!_ he yelled at himself. _Wake up!_

Then something disappeared from inside him. There one instant, gone the next. He felt as if a major organ had just been ripped from his body.

It had been her, Teresa. She was gone.

So was Rachel, only Aris was left. Thomas could feel the odd buzz of the other boy using the telepathy but could not hear the words.

 _Teresa!_ he screamed out with his mind. _Rachel! Are you there?_

But there was nothing, and he no longer felt that comforting sense of Teresa's closeness. He called her name again, then again, as he continued to struggle against the dark pull of sleep.

Finally, reality swept in, washed away the darkness. Engulfed in terror, Thomas opened his eyes and shot to a sitting position on his bed, scooted out until he got his feet under him and jumped up. Looked around.

Everything had gone utterly insane.


	2. Chapter 2

_What is going on?_ Thomas asked Aris, meeting his friend's eyes in the chaos.

 _No idea. I can't reach Rachel or Teresa. Something's blocking us._ With all the noise it was pointless to try to talk normally.

Gladers were running around, pointing at the windows and screaming.

Against his better judgement, Thomas stared out of the window nearest him, Aris had turned to stare at the wall with determination.

The glass was broken, jagged shards leaning against crisscrossed steel bars. A man stood on the other side, gripping the bars with bloody hands. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, filled with madness. Sores and scars covered his thin, sunburnt face. He had no hair, only diseased splotches of what looked like greenish moss. A vicious slit stretched across his right cheek; Thomas could see teeth through the raw, festering wound. Pink saliva dribbled in swaying lines from the man's chin.

"I'm a Crank!" the horror of a man yelled. "I'm a bloody Crank!"  
And then he started screaming two words over and over and over, spit flying with every shriek.  
"Kill me! Kill me! Kill me! ..."

The 'cranks' were everywhere, staring and screaming at the Gladers through all the windows. All of which had bars, meaning that the rescuers had known they were a threat. Where were those people anyway?

"Everyone slim it!" Newt yelled from the centre of the room. Most of the boys stopped their screaming, desperately looking at Newt to tell them what to do.

"We need to get out of here, find the girls, have a Gathering. All this noise is driving nails through my skull." That, Thomas thought, was at least sensible. Finding Teresa and Rachel was first on his list of priorities.

the Gladers gathered around the green-painted door that led to the common area where they'd eaten pizza the night before. Minho was jerking on the round brass handle to no avail. Locked.

The only other door was to a shower and locker room, from which no other exits existed. There was that, and the windows. All with those metal bars. Thank goodness. Each one had raging lunatics screaming and yelling on the other side.

Even though worry ate at him like spilled acid in his veins, Thomas gave up momentarily on trying to contact Teresa and joined the other Gladers. Newt was having a go at the door, with the same useless result.

"It's locked," he muttered when he finally gave up, his arms falling weakly to his sides.

"Really, genius?" Minho said, his powerful arms folded and tensed, veins bulging all over the place. Thomas thought for a split second he could actually see the blood pumping through them. "No wonder you were named after Isaac Newton―such an amazing ability to think."

A boy found a fire extinguisher, and Newt used it to break the handle off.

"Wait," Frypan called out. "We sure we wanna go out there? Maybe that door was locked for a reason."

Thomas couldn't help but agree; something felt wrong about this.  
Minho stepped up to stand right next to Newt; he looked back at Frypan, then made eye contact with Thomas. "What else're we gonna do? Sit here and wait for those loonies to get in? Come on."

"Those freaks aren't breaking through the window bars anytime soon," Frypan retorted. "Let's just think for a second"

"Time for thinking's done," Minho said. He kicked out with his foot and the door swung completely open; if anything, it seemed to grow even darker on the other side. "Plus, you should've spoken up before we blasted the lock to bits, slinthead. Too late now."

"I hate when you're right," Frypan grumbled under his breath.

Newt pushed the door open into blackness.

Immediately the voices of girls could be heard, even though he didn't recognise Rachel or Teresa, Thomas was filled with relief.

"Someone find the shucking lightswitch." Harriet commanded, that got the boys looking for it too, banging into tables and things hanging from the ceiling. The room smelt awful.

Eventually someone found the lights, and the true horror of the scene could be realised.

Boys and girls stood on opposite sides of the room, dormitory doors still open, all of them staring at the bodies of their rescuers hanging from the ceiling.

They'd all been strung up by the neck, the ropes twisted and trenched into purple, bloated skin. The stiff bodies swung to and fro ever so slightly, pale pink tongues lolling out of their white-lipped mouths. All of them had eyes open, though glazed over with certain death.

The staring only lasted a moment before the two groups collided, friends hugging each other. Thomas and Aris found Teresa and Rachel, embraced them, the telepathy had been cut off, but they were still all together.

"Are there cranks at your windows too?" Rachel asked, once they were all stood facing each other.

"Yes, woke up to pandemonium." Thomas answered her, the doors to the bedrooms had been slammed and the screaming had faded.

"What's that on the side of your neck?" Teresa pulled down Rachel's shirt collar. "A tattoo, words."

Rachel looked very confused.

"That wasn't there last night, what does it say?" She ran her hand over the skin, staring at her fingers as if expecting something to have rubbed off on them.

"Property of WICKED, Subject B2, The Sacrifice." Teresa read.

Sacrifice. The word filled Thomas's thoughts, he remembered how Rachel had nearly been killed by Beth's knife as Gally had killed Chuck. Sacrifice, WICKED had been willing to sacrifice her for a variable. WICKED had somehow found them, killed their rescuers and regained control.

"Earth to Thomas." Teresa waved a hand in front of his face. "C'mon, we should go tell Newt and them about this." She turned around, throwing all of her hair over one shoulder.

That allowed Thomas to see it, the thick black printed letters that had never been there before.

"Wait, you've got one too." Thomas, Rachel and Aris gathered around Teresa, staring at the words.

 **Property of WICKED**

 **Subject A1**

 **The Betrayer**

Aris read the words aloud. "What does it mean?" He asked them all, they were yet to try the telepathy again, no one had any answers.

"Someone check me." Thomas said, he had a sinking feeling that every Glader had a tattoo.

"Property of WICKED, Subject A2, The Runner." Teresa read, Rachel did the same for Aris.

"Property of WICKED, Subject B1, The Partner."

"Newt." Thomas tapped the boy's arm, he was deep in conversation with Sonya and Harriet.

"What Tommy?"

"Us, ya know me, Teresa, Rachel, Aris." The three leaders were nodding, aggravated, as if they knew he would say that. "We found these tattoos, on the sides of our necks, they say property of WICKED, that we're subjects."

That really did get their attention.

"Show me." Harriet demanded, with all the authority Alby had once had. Thomas turned obediently, felt their breath on his skin, Sonya read the words aloud.

"Holy shuck." Newt whispered. "D'ya think everyone has one of these?"

"Quite sure."

A lot of Gladers were listening now, and the next few moments were a frenzy of people checking each other's necks, shouting out subject numbers. Few had the special designations, which Thomas took care to remember, they were shouted louder than anything else.

Harriet was B4: The Warrior. Newt was A5: The Glue. Sonya B5: The Survivor.

Minho and Miyoko joined them after a moment. They were The Leader, and The Counterweight, A7 and B7.

"So all the girls are B and all the boys are A. So what's with those two?" Miyoko gestured to Aris and Teresa. Teresa was A1, but all the other As were boys, Aris was B1 but all the other Bs were girls, it didn't make any sense.

Harriet went around for a moment with a notepad and pencil, Newt shouting information to her. Thomas remembered she had taken them from the Glade, she seemed to be keeping track of who was still alive.

"Look here." Harriet instructed, pointing at a page where she had written twelve names, with some other information.

 _A1, Teresa, The Betrayer._

 _B1, Aris, The Partner._

 _A2, Thomas, The Runner._

 _B2, Rachel, The Sacrifice._

The number three was skipped other entirely, whoever they were they must be dead.

 _B4, Harriet, The Warrior._ Thomas presumed Alby would have been A4.

 _A5, Newt, The Glue._

 _B5, Sonya, The Survivor._

 _B6, Beth, The Repentant._ Gally must have been A6, a part of Thomas hoped he was dead.

 _A7, Minho, The Leader._

 _B7, Miyoko, The Counterweight._

 _B8, Mary, The Remnant._

There was no A8, and no more names.

"No one else has anything other than property of WICKED, and a number, Frypan and Jane are nine."

"Who's Mary?" Teresa asked, it was the only unfamiliar name but it did ring a bell somewhere in Thomas's mind.

"Weird stick, her partner was George, he was the first one to die. Griever sting, messed her right up." Sonya explained.

Thomas remembered how Chuck had once pointed out a strange girl who kept to herself, he had never spoken to her, but the title seemed to make sense. Most of them did.

Newt was the glue because he held everyone together. Thomas knew full well he was a runner. WICKED had been ready to sacrifice Rachel for a variable. Miyoko was the counterweight to Minho's anger. There was no question that Harriet was a warrior and Sonya was a survivor. Minho had the potential to be a leader.

It made perfect sense that Beth would be sorry for what she had done, hadn't she tried to express that sentiment the night before. Aris always worked with Rachel or Teresa, never alone.

Teresa as The Betrayer. That was the only one that didn't make sense. She had never betrayed anyone, Thomas couldn't imagine she ever would.

Thomas quickly told them all of it, Harriet scribbling down every word.

An alarm began to sound. The same one heard in the Glade when Teresa and Aris had arrived, it had no discernible source.

Then the alarm stopped as suddenly as it had come, and all the bodies hanging from the ceiling were gone.

"What the…" Sonya was staring around in disbelief. "That can't have been real."

"It must have been like the Cliff." Newt suggested.

"But we could feel the bodies." She continued, all around the room Gladers were staring in similar confusion. Stretching out their hands to touch air that had been solid moments before.

The removal of the bodies was pleasant but troubling. How could such a thing happen under their noses, when the only exit was a door chained tight?

That wasn't all that had changed, the beds were remade, dressers stocked. Most noticeably, a brick wall had appeared, outside every window, and the cranks were gone.

It was utterly impossible, so how were they experiencing it?


	3. Chapter 3

There were shouts from the common room, something about a man and his desk having mysteriously appeared.

This was getting weirder and weirder.

Going into the common room they found a table of food had been set out, but no one had touched any of it, all of them instead staring at what was in front of the doors. Doors that were still chained and locked.

A large wooden desk had been placed there, but there were no scuff marks on the carpet. Some Gladers were talking about how he had not been there one second and materialised the next, the bodies in reverse. There was an invisible shield between it and them.  
Behind the desk, a thin man in a white suit sat in a chair, his feet propped up and crossed at the ankles.  
The man was reading a book.

Thomas stood there for a full minute, staring at the man casually sitting at the desk, reading. It was as if he'd been reading that way and in that very spot every day for his whole life. Thin black hair combed across a pale, bald head; a long nose, twisted slightly to the right; and shifty brown eyes darting back and forth as he read―the man somehow looked relaxed and nervous at the same time.

And the white suit. Pants, shirt, tie, coat. Socks. Shoes. All white.  
What in the world?

"What is all this? How are they doing it?" Rachel wondered, no one had any answers for her.

Thomas joined Newt and Minho, Teresa following, they banged on the barrier, the were no smudges on it, nothing tangible, and nothing to see but air.

The strangely dressed man, just a dozen or so feet in front of him, let out an exaggerated sigh as he pulled his crossed feet from the desk and let them drop to the floor. He placed a finger in his book to mark his place and looked up at Thomas, making no effort to hide his annoyance.

"How many times do I have to repeat this?" the man said, his nasally voice a perfect match for his pale skin, thin hair and skinny body. And that suit. That stupid white suit. Oddly, his words weren't muffled at all by the barrier. "We still have forty-seven minutes before I've been authorized to implement Phase Two of the Trials. Please show your patience and leave me alone. You've been given this time to eat and replenish yourselves, and I strongly suggest you take advantage of it. Now, if you don't mind ..."

Without waiting for a response, he leaned back in his chair and returned his feet to the desktop. Then, opening his book to the spot he'd marked, he resumed reading.

Thomas took Teresa's hand, returning to Aris and Rachel who were sharing a plate of sandwiches.

"Breakfast, or is it lunchtime?" Aris held out the platter, smiling, Thomas took one and bit in. Jam. Delicious.

Between them they finished all of the sandwiches, just before Harriet announced that they had to save the rest of the food for later.

Time was ticking down until the deadline, some Gladers had been calling the stranger 'Rat-man' and Thomas thought it fit him perfectly.

"He can't be going to say something good, if he's got that magic wall separating him from us." Teresa reached out, squeezing Thomas's hand and not letting go. A hum of chatter hovered over the room.

"All you shanks slim it." Newt yelled. "I think this shucks gonna tell us somethin'."

On cue Rat-man got up, rummaging through his desk drawers until he found a densely packed manila folder full of messy papers, many of them bent and sticking out at odd angles.

"Ah, here it is," Rat Man said in his nasally voice; then he placed the folder on the desk, opened it up and looked at the Gladers in front of him. "Thank you for gathering in an orderly manner so I can tell you what I've been ... instructed to tell you. Please listen carefully."

"Why do you need that wall!" Minho shouted.  
Shut it!" Miyoko shoved him, "don't go antagonising everyone."

Rat Man continued as if he hadn't heard the outburst. "You're all still here because of an uncanny will to survive despite the odds, among ... other reasons. About one-hundred and twenty people were sent to live in the Glade."

"Out of all those people, only a fraction survived to be here today. I'm assuming you've figured this out by now, but many of the things that happen to you are solely for the purpose of judging and analyzing your responses. And yet it's not really an experiment as much as it is ... constructing a blueprint. Stimulating the killzone and collecting the resultant patterns. Putting them all together to achieve the greatest breakthrough in the history of science and medicine.

"These situations inflicted upon you are called the Variables, and each one has been meticulously thought out. I'll explain more soon. And though I can't tell you everything at this time, it's vital that you know this much: these trials you're going through are for a very important cause. Continue to respond well to the Variables, continue to survive, and you'll be rewarded with the knowledge that you've played a part in saving the human race. And yourselves, of course."

Rat Man paused, apparently for effect.  
"This dude's shucked in the head," Minho whispered. "How would escaping a freaking maze save the human race?"

That made absolutely no sense to Thomas, but there wasn't an escape for them now, all they could do was play along and survive until it was all over.

"I represent a group called WICKED," Rat Man continued. "I know it sounds menacing, but it stands for World In Catastrophe, Killzone Experiment Department. Nothing menacing about it, despite what you may think. We exist for one purpose and one purpose only: to save the world from catastrophe. You here in this room are a vital part of what we plan to do. We have resources never known to any group of any kind in the history of civilization. Nearly unlimited money, unlimited human capital and technology advanced beyond even the most clever man's wants and wishes.

"As you make your way through the Trials, you have seen and will continue to see evidence of this technology and the resources behind it. If I can tell you anything today, it is that you should never, ever believe your eyes. Or your mind, for that matter. This is why we did the demonstration with the hanging bodies and the bricked-up windows. All I will say is that sometimes what you see is not real, and sometimes what you do not see is real. We can manipulate your brains and nerve receptacles when necessary. I know this all sounds confusing and a little scary, perhaps."

"The Maze was a part of the Trials. Not one Variable was thrown at you that didn't serve a purpose for our collection of killzone patterns. Your escape was part of the Trials. Your battle against the Grievers. The murder of the boy Chuck, the unfortunate failure to carry out the same on Rachel. You must not ruin any other Variables, or you will suffer the most severe consequences." The man stared at Aris and Rachel as he said this. Aris's glare matched that he had given the woman in the chamber where Chuck had died: pure hatred.

Anger swelled up inside Thomas, to speak of killing Chuck so trivially, that they seemed to consider Rachel as insignificant as a piece of rubbish missed by a janitor.

"The supposed rescue and subsequent trip in the bus. All of it. Part of the Trials. You understand? Phase One, to be exact. And we are still dangerously short of what we need. So we've had to up the ante, and now it's time for Phase Two. It's time for things to get difficult."

 _Difficult._ Teresa's silent voice was a comfort, but Thomas found himself wondering if their telepathic communication could be monitored, if these people could manipulate their brains to such an extent. _Hasn't it already been difficult, what else can they throw at us?_

Rat Man waited for an eternity, then slowly lowered himself back into the chair and scooted forward to sit behind the desk once more. "You may think, or it may seem, that we're merely testing your ability to survive. On the surface, the Maze Trial could be mistakenly classified that way. But I assure you―this is not merely about survival and the will to live. That's only part of this experiment. The bigger picture is something you won't understand until the very end.

"Sun flares have ravaged many parts of the earth. Also, a disease unlike any before known to man has been ravaging the earth's people―a disease called the Flare. For the first time, the governments of all nations―the surviving ones―are working together. They've combined forces to create WICKED―a group meant to fight the new problems of this world. You are a big part of that fight. And you'll have every incentive to work with us, because, sad to say, each one of you has already caught the virus."

He quickly held up his hands to cut off the rumblings that started. "Now, now! No need to worry―the Flare takes a while to set in and show symptoms. But at the end of these Trials, the cure will be your reward, and you'll never see the ... debilitating effects. Not many can afford the cure, you know."

Thomas imagined going insane, becoming one of the horrifying cranks they had seen at the dorm windows. His friends with festering wounds, screaming, eyes filled with lunacy. The man was right, they had all the incentive they needed. He worked hard to force an image of Teresa with half her hair ripped off and cheek sliced open from his mind.

"But enough of this history lesson and time-wasting," Rat Man continued. "We know you now. All of you. It doesn't matter what I say or what's behind the mission of WICKED. You'll all do whatever it takes. Of this we have no doubt. And by doing what we ask, you'll save yourselves by getting the very cure so many people desperately want."

Rat Man looked down at the messy stack of papers lying in the open folder, picked up a loose piece of it, then turned it over, barely glancing at its contents. He cleared his throat. "Phase Two. The Scorch Trials. It officially begins tomorrow morning at six o'clock. You'll enter this room, and in the wall behind me you will find a Flat Trans. To your eyes the Flat Trans will appear as a shimmering wall of gray. Each of you must step through it by five minutes after the hour. So again, it opens at six o'clock and closes five minutes after that. Do you understand?"

"I'm quite certain you can all hear," Rat Man said. "Do ... you ... under ... stand?" Some yeahs and yeses were muttered around the room.

Rat Man quickly slammed the folder shut, bending its contents even more than before, then put it away in the drawer from which he'd retrieved it. He stood, stepped to the side and pushed the chair underneath the desk. Finally, he folded his hands in front of him and returned his attention to the Gladers.

"It's simple, really," he said, his tone so matter-of-fact one would think he'd just given them instructions on how to turn on the showers in the bathroom. "There are no rules. There are no guidelines. You have few supplies, and there's nothing to help you along the way. Go through the Flat Trans at the time indicated. Find open air. Go one hundred miles, directly north, to the safe haven. Make it or die."

The last word seemed to finally snap everyone out of their stupor, all of them speaking up at once. "What's a Flat Trans?"

"How'd we catch the Flare?"  
"How long till we see symptoms?"  
"What's at the end of the hundred miles?"  
"What happened to the dead bodies?"

Question after question, a chorus of them, all melding into one roar of confusion. As for Thomas, he didn't bother. The stranger wasn't going to tell them anything. Couldn't they all see that?

 _Why do all these people want me dead?_ Thomas really wished he had an answer to comfort Rachel but he couldn't think of anything, these people seemed to have power over them akin to that of gods.

 _Doesn't matter. I won't let them_. Aris's tone was one of determined conviction.

Rat Man waited patiently, ignoring them, those dark eyes darting back and forth between the Gladers as they spoke. His gaze settled on Thomas, who sat there, silent, staring back at him, hating him. Hating WICKED. Hating the world.

"Shut up!" Harriet finally shouted. The questions stopped instantly. "He ain't answering, so quit wastin' your time."

Rat Man nodded once toward Harriet as if thanking her.

"One hundred miles. North. Hope you make it. Remember―you all have the Flare now. We gave it to you to provide any incentive you may be lacking. And reaching the safe haven means receiving a cure." He turned away and moved toward the wall behind him, as if he planned to walk right through it. But then he stopped and faced them again.

"Ah, one last thing," he said. "Don't think you'll avoid the Scorch Trials if you decide not to enter the Flat Trans between six and six-oh-five tomorrow morning. Those who stay behind will be executed immediately in a most ... unpleasant manner. Better off taking your chances in the outside world. Good luck to all of you."

With that he turned away and started inexplicably walking toward the chained doors.

But before Thomas could see what happened, the invisible wall separating them started to fog up, whitening to an opaque blur in a matter of seconds. And then the whole thing disappeared, once again revealing the other side of the common area.

Except there was no sign of the desk and its chair. And no sign of Rat Man.


	4. Chapter 4

The room erupted into shouting and chaos. It was all just too much.

Thomas got up, went to his bed from the night before, lay down, shut his eyes.

Once again, he dreamed.

 _He's a little older this time, probably seven or eight. A very bright light hovers above his head like magic._

 _People in strange green suits and funny glasses keep peeking at him, their heads momentarily blocking the brilliance that shines down. He can see their eyes but nothing else. Their mouths and noses are covered by masks. Thomas is somehow both himself at that age and yet, as before, observing as an outsider. But he feels the boy's fear._

 _People are talking, voices muted and dull. Some are men, some are women, but he can't tell which is which or who is who._

 _He can't understand much of it at all._  
 _Only glimpses. Fragments of conversation. All of it terrifying._  
 _"We'll have to cut deeper with him and the other three."_  
 _"Can their brains handle this?"_

 _"This is so amazing, you know? The Flare is rooted inside him."_  
 _"He might die."_  
 _"Or worse. He might live."_  
 _He hears one last thing, finally something that doesn't make him shiver in disgust or fright._  
 _"Or he and the others might save us. Save us all."_

"Thomas, wake up." A girl's sing-song voice pulled him out of his slumber. Teresa.

"Awwh, I wanted to throw water on him." Rachel pouted, she was actually holding a cup.

"How long was I asleep?" Thomas asked them, there was no daylight to tell, the dream had been short, but when he dreamed time in the real world lost all meaning.

"About three hours, everyone's mostly calmed down." Aris took the cup of water from Rachel and drank it all in one go.

"How can we believe anything, ever again?" Teresa sat on the mattress, fiddling with a corner of the blanket.

Ratman had said that they could not believe their senses, every part of their minds could be manipulated. That could mean Thomas's dreams were simply a fabrication, or memories specifically released to give certain snippets of information, like the changing.

"What were you even dreaming about? You kept whispering." Rachel sat down on the floor, Thomas realised that the room was mostly empty, other than a few other Gladers who had also decided to nap. The rules about separating boys and girls had vanished with the rescuers, it seemed.

"Last night I saw my Mom." Thomas began, wondering what the three of them would have to say about the strangeness of it all. "She said something about my dad being crazy, that I was going to be sent away, because she was going to go mad too."

"Crazy, like the cranks?" Teresa gestured to the bricked up windows. Thomas nodded and continued.

"And just now, I think I was on a hospital bed, these people hovering over me in weird suits. They were talking about the four of us being special, that they had to 'dig deeper'." The details of the vision were quickly fading from Thomas's mind, he didn't have long to say them. "There was something about the Flare being rooted deep inside us, and about our brains." It didn't make sense to Thomas. He had been a young boy in the memory, and the madness would have taken his mind by now, if he had been infected for so long.

"If that crazy bug's been rooted in us since we were kids, wouldn't we be like those freaks by now?" Rachel repeated Thomas's thoughts almost exactly.

"But the Trials will earn us a cure, all we can do is complete them." Aris was right, even though Thomas hated the idea he knew there was no other option.

They had to cross a place called the Scorch, Scorch, sun flares, Flare virus. So much about fire. There would probably be some of those cranks out there, how did they deal with them? Most had abandoned their weapons before the rescue and everything left had disappeared, they only had what WICKED had provided them with, and Thomas didn't think WICKED would make it too easy for them.

It was going to be hell.

"Flat Trans." Teresa said with a thoughtful look. "It sounds almost like the Cliff, something that's flat and transports us somewhere else." Thomas grinned at her and she smiled back.

They then went off on a discussion about some of the things they'd heard from their odd visitor. About the sun flares and the disease and how different things might be now that they knew they were being tested or experimented on. About a lot of things, with no answers―all of it laced with an unspoken fear of the virus they'd supposedly been given. They finally lulled into silence.

Not much happened during the rest of the day. At dinnertime Newt approached Thomas and Teresa, telling them it had been decided that due to his designation Minho would be leader, or a leader. Thomas thought the older boy seemed quite happy to keep his place in the hierarchy. Minho had argued, Newt said, would have preferred to keep working alongside Miyoko. Harriet would keep her position, out of the original four leaders she was the only one left and therefore people looked to her.

The second in command joked that they would put Thomas on scouting duty due to his designation before Sonya pulled him away. It didn't sound like a bad job.

Backpacks and canteens had been provided for them. But they hadn't been given much in the way of supplies; the food, a canteen each, lightweight desert clothing and running shoes, basic medical kits, toiletries, digital watches, sharp knives.

Harriet called bedtime at nine pm, a lot of Gladers had dragged mattresses into the common room. Thomas helped Aris grab two and drag them to an empty space near the locked doors while Rachel and Teresa collected four full sets of supplies.

They set their alarms for five am, lay down. Thomas felt far more comfortable than he had the night before, when the four of them were together everything just seemed better.

It was still an odd feeling to have about people he had only known for a few days.

 _Night._ Rachel announced as the lights went out, it didn't take Thomas long to fall asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Thomas woke up well before alarms were to go off, couldn't get back to sleep. Teresa had rested her head on his chest, breathing gently, it wasn't exactly comfortable but Thomas didn't want to move her.

He hadn't had any more strange dreams, so he entertained himself with thoughts of revenge.

Revenge against WICKED, they had killed Chuck, they had tried to kill Rachel, both in cold blood. They had killed Alby, so many others, had people rescue the Gladers only to kill them.

Although Thomas did doubt that the bodies had actually been real.

Beeps filled the building and someone turned the light on, painfully bright.

Everyone showered, ate a small breakfast, sat in the common room waiting for the Flat Trans to appear.

Three minutes to time Minho stood up, addressing the Gladers.

"Everyone sure they still wanna go?" No one protested, all the cowards had been left in the Glade.

"Anybody change their mind overnight?" Minho asked. "Speak now or never. Once we go wherever we're going, if some shank decides they're a sissy pants and try to turn back, I'll make sure they do it with a broken nose."  
Thomas looked over at Newt, who had his head in his hands and was groaning loudly.

"Newt, you got a problem?" Minho asked, his voice surprisingly stern. Thomas, shocked, waited for Newt's reaction. Harriet seemed vaguely amused, perhaps wondering if she should step in.  
The older boy seemed just as surprised. "Uh ... no. Just admiring your bloody leadership skills."

Minho pulled his shirt away from his neck, leaned over to show everyone the tattoo there. "What does that say, slinthead?"

Newt glanced left and right, his face blushing. "We know you're the boss, Minho. Slim it."  
"No, you slim it," Minho retorted, pointing at Newt. "We don't have time for that kind of klunk. So shut your hole."  
Thomas could only hope that Minho was putting on an act to solidify the decision they'd made for him to be the leader, and that Newt understood. Though if Minho was acting, he was sure doing a good job of it.

"Don't you start or I'll demote you both." Harriet glared, Minho opened his mouth to protest but she stared him down without even standing. Why had WICKED chosen Minho as leader if she was an option, maybe to cause conflict? Although, they may have just intended him to be the male leader to replace Alby.

At exactly six o clock part of a wall turned to a shimmering pane of grey, the flat trans, it had to be.

Minho walked up to it, pulled a hand through, then back.

"See you shanks on the other side." He disappeared into the grey wall.

"Everyone line up, I hope you packed all your klunk." Harriet began to shepherd the Gladers through. "Watch the back for me Sonya." She gave Miyoko a push and followed her.

The line began to dwindle quickly, everyone aware of the time limit Ratman had set.

After two minutes, only Thomas and his friends were left with Newt and Sonya.

"Get going shanks." Sonya commanded. Rachel stepped through, face confident but hands shaking, Aris followed her.

 _You sure about this?_ Teresa asked, she sounded uncertain.

 _Well I don't want to be 'executed in a most terrible manner'._ Thomas did his best impression of Ratman.

She smiled, stepped forward, Thomas took a last look around before Newt shoved him.

The flat trans felt exactly like the Griever Hole, confirming that the Hole had been one. A distinct line of coldness passed through Thomas's whole body.

There was nothing on the other side but darkness, voices muttering.

"All of you shut up, I'm doing a roll call." Harriet's voice cut through the din, there were a few scattered sighs, to Thomas it didn't seem like a bad idea, he noted that she must have memorised the list of survivors.

"Newt." The boy groaned near Thomas.

"Present."

"Sonya."

"Where else would I be?"

This went on for several minutes and forty-eight more names, Thomas tried to remember as many of them as possible.

"Good, now why couldn't they have given us a shuck flashlight." Minho was shouting from the front of the line, Harriet had finally finished. A hand reached out to Thomas and he held it, long hair brushing his shoulder. Teresa.

"Follow my voice and keep going forward. Try not to step on anyone's toes."

The darkness was disorienting, the tunnel oddly hot, when Thomas brushed the wall it felt like an oven. The group moved slowly, following Minho's shouts and Miyoko's occasional demands for him to 'tone down the stupidity'. They had somehow ended up arguing about whether boys or girls were the smartest on average, it was slightly amusing background noise.

 _I'd say that seeing as there's always been more girls around than boys, has some bearing on that. They sent an equal amount of both to start with._ Rachel interrupted the telepathic silence.

They walked for what must have been at least two hours. There was no light to see there watches so no sense of time. It felt like the Box, another small, dark place delivering them to WICKED's latest horrors.

From up ahead, Minho shouted for the others to halt. Then, "Did you guys hear that?"

The flash of whispering had been quick, difficult to understand. Thomas held on tighter to Teresa's hand.

Minho shushed everyone again, telling them to listen.  
Even though it was perfectly dark and therefore pointless, Thomas closed his eyes, concentrating on his sense of hearing. If the voice came again, he wanted to catch what it said.

The voice came again, but too quickly for Thomas to catch it.

"It said 'go back'." Aris whispered nearby.  
The next time the voice came, Thomas understood every single syllable.  
"One-chance deal. Go back now, you won't be sliced."  
Judging by the reactions in front of him, everyone else got it this time, too.

"Won't be sliced?"  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
"He said we can go back!"  
"We can't trust some random shank whispering in the dark."

Thomas tried not to think about how ominous the last four words had been. You won't be sliced. That didn't sound good at all. And not being able to see anything made it worse. Driving him crazy.  
"Just keep going!" he shouted up to Minho. "I can't take this much longer. Just go!"  
"Wait a minute." Frypan's voice. "The voice said this was a one-chance deal. We have to at least think about it."  
"Yeah," Jane added. "Maybe we should go back."

Thomas shook his head even though he knew no one could see it. "No way. Remember what that guy at the desk told us. That we'd all die horrible deaths if we go back."  
Frypan pushed. "Well, what makes him any more in charge than this whispering dude? How're we supposed to know who to listen to and who to ignore?"  
Thomas knew it was a good question, but going back just didn't feel right. "The voice is just a test, I bet. We need to keep going."

"He's right." This was Minho from up in front. "Come on, let's go."  
He'd barely said the last word when the whispering voice whooshed through the air again, this time laced with an almost childish hatred. "You're all dead. You're all going to be sliced. Dead and sliced."

"I want out of this place." Teresa sounded both angry and afraid.

"Don't we all." Thomas could see the expression that would be on Rachel's face.

No one else spoke, they continued forward.

Time passed slowly, so slowly. The floor, Minho and Miyoko now arguing about if they should stop to eat, Teresa's hand in his, Rachel's occasional quips through the telepathy, the mass of Gladers marching in front. Thomas focussed on all these things in turn, his sanity starting to slip with the maddening monotony, the impenetrable darkness.

He couldn't take much more of this place.

 _This can't go on forever, it won't._ Teresa's voice was caring, grounding, calm.

 _I need to get out of here._

 _We will, just keep going, keep talking to me._

 _You all okay?_ Aris appeared in the conversation, Thomas tried to suppress his disappointment.

 _As soon as we get to see light and fresh air again._ Teresa told him.

Up ahead a boy screamed, only a few dozen feet in front of them. Thomas was reminded of the creepy voice and its terrifying message.

The unfortunate kid was screaming himself hoarse, thrashing on the ground. Thomas let go of Teresa, ran forward on instinct, moving towards the injured boy.

"His head, something's got his head." A girl was shouting, likely the boy's partner. Thomas didn't recognise the voice.

Thomas reached the scene, wishing he could see, the girl was rapidly descending into hysteria.  
"Hey!" Thomas yelled at the squirming boy. "What's wrong with you?" His fingers brushed the kid's jeans, then his shirt, but the boy's body convulsed all over the place, impossible to catch, and his shrieks continued to pierce the air.

Finally, Thomas went for broke. He dove forward, launching himself fully onto the body of the thrashing kid. With a jolt that knocked the breath out of him, he landed, felt the squirming torso; an elbow dug into his ribs, then a hand slapped his face. A knee came up and almost got him square in the groin.

"Stop it!" Thomas shouted. "What's wrong!"

The screams gurgled to a stop, almost like the kid had just been pulled underwater. But the convulsing didn't ease in the slightest.  
Thomas put an elbow and forearm on the chest of the Glader for leverage, then reached out to grab his hair or his face. But when his hands slid over what was there, confusion consumed him.

There was no head. No hair or face. Not even a neck. None of those things that should've been there.  
Instead, Thomas felt a large and perfectly smooth ball of cold metal.

The next few seconds were beyond strange. As soon as Thomas's hand made contact with the odd metal ball, the boy stopped moving. His arms and legs stilled and the stiffness in his twitching torso went away in an instant. Thomas felt a thick wetness on the hard sphere, oozing up from where the kid's neck should've been. He knew it was blood, could smell the coppery scent of it.

Then the ball slipped from under Thomas's fingers and rolled away, making a hollow grating sound until it thumped into the closest wall and came to a stop. The boy lying below him didn't move or make a sound. The other Gladers continued to shout questions into the dark, but Thomas ignored them.

The hysterical girl touched Thomas's fingers as she felt for her friend's face. She must have felt the absence of the head, smelt the blood. She began to scream, a piercing, terrifying sound of grief and horror.

"Nia calm down." It was Beth, Thomas realised, trying to reason with the girl, he had never heard her speak so gently. It occurred to him that he had never spoken directly to her.

There was the crack of a slap, Thomas was reminded of Rachel doing the same to him after his night in the maze with Minho and Alby. He was aware that it was supposed to bring someone back to reality.

The screaming stopped, the girl was sobbing, traumatised. Beth and someone else were soothing her, pulling her to stand again. Thomas got up, wiping his bloody hands on his shorts and remembering what the voice had said.

"Thomas!" Minho's voice. "Thomas! What happened?"  
Thomas tried to calm himself, take hold of things. His stomach lurched; his chest tightened. "I ... I don't know. Who was that? Who was down there screaming?"

Winston answered, his voice shaky. "Frankie, I think. He was right next to me, just making a joke, and then it was like something yanked him away. Yeah, it was him. Definitely him if it had Nia screaming like that."  
"What happened!" Minho repeated.

"Look, I heard him screaming, and ran up here to help. I jumped on him, tried to pin his arms down, find out what was wrong. Then I reached for his head to grab him by the cheeks―I don't even know why―and all I felt was ..."  
He couldn't say it. Nothing could possibly sound more absurd than the truth.  
"What?" Minho shouted.

Thomas groaned, then said it. "His head wasn't a head. It was like a ... a big ... metal ball. I don't know, man, but that's what I felt. Like his shuck head had been swallowed by ... by a big metal ball!"

"What're you talking about?" Minho asked.

Thomas didn't know how he could convince him or anyone else. "Didn't you hear it rolling away right after he stopped screaming? I know it―"

"It's right here!" someone shouted. Newt. Thomas heard a heavy scrape again, then Newt grunting with effort. "I heard it roll over here. And it's all wet and sticky―feels like blood."  
"What the klunk," Minho half whispered. "How big is it?" The other Gladers joined in with a chorus of questions.

"Everybody slim it!" Newt yelled. When they quieted, he said flatly, "I don't know." Thomas heard him carefully handling the ball to get a feel for it. "Bigger than a buggin' head for sure. It's perfectly round―a perfect sphere."  
Thomas was baffled, disgusted, but all he could think about was getting out of that place. Out of the darkness. "We need to run," he said. "We need to go. Now."

"Maybe we should go back." Thomas didn't recognize the voice. "Whatever that ball thing is, it sliced off Frankie's head, just like the old shank warned us."  
"No way," Minho responded angrily. "No way. Thomas is right. No more dinkin' around. Spread out a couple of feet from each other, then run. Hunch down, and if something comes near your head, hit the living crap out of it."

Thomas found his way back to Teresa, Rachel, Aris. They were asking if he was okay, but he didn't answer them. Harriet shouted something and the whole group began to run.

A death ball got someone else, even closer to Thomas, a girl. He recognised Jeff shouting for Helen before the screams cut off.

Thomas had never met the girl. The worst part of the deaths was hearing their friends scream for them as they died. He hoped he never screamed like that again, the way he had screamed for Chuck, Newt had screamed for Alby.

The group never slowed, maybe the tunnel went on forever, around in circles too large for them to notice they were being turned around. Thomas quickly put that thought out of his head.

When Minho called for everyone to stop, the relief was almost overwhelming. His exhaustion had finally won out over the terror of the thing that had killed two people.

Sounds of people panting filled the small space, and it reeked of bad breath. Apparently not many Gladers bothered to brush their teeth, Thomas smiled slightly at the memory of Rachel shoving a toothbrush at him in the Glade. Telling him to use it or find a new best friend.

Frypan was the first one to recover enough to speak. "Why'd we stop?"  
"'Cause I almost broke my shins on something up here!" Minho shouted back. "I think it's a stairway."

Thomas felt his spirits lift, but immediately squashed them back down. Getting his hopes up was something he'd sworn never to do again. Not until all this was over.  
"Well, let's go up 'em!" Frypan said far too cheerfully.

"Ya think?" Minho responded. "What would we do without you, Frypan? Seriously."  
Thomas heard the heavy stomps of Minho's footsteps as he ran up the stairs―it made a high-pitched ringing like they were made of thin metal. Only a few seconds passed before other footsteps joined in, and soon everyone was following Minho.

There was a door at the top. Thomas could hear Minho, Miyoko and several others trying to get it open.

The light was blinding, and the heat was incredible.

People had put their hands over their eyes, struggling to see. Thomas looked to his friends, their skin was lit by the brightness, it was painful to look at Teresa, her pale white skin glowed, it was like looking at the sun.

"Shut that shuck thing before we all go blind!" Sonya yelled and the darkness returned with a clonk. Despite his prior hatred of it Thomas thought it was a blessing.

Newt had Minho open the trapdoor a crack, shoved a shirt in it so they could adjust their eyes. After a few minutes everything was bright but otherwise fine.

Thomas could see the tunnel now, it was made of a dull gray metal, went back into darkness.

The whole door was opened and the light streamed in, painfully bright, the metal suddenly became red hot.

"Maybe we should wait until night?" Miyoko suggested.

roans of complaint sounded from the Gladers, but then they were overcome by a sudden outburst from Winston. "Whoa! Watch out! Watch out!"

Thomas turned to look at Winston down the stairs. He was pointing at something right above him as he backed up a couple of steps. On the ceiling, just a few feet above their heads, a big glob of liquid silver was coalescing, seeping out of the metal as if melting into a large teardrop. It grew bigger and bigger as Thomas stared at it, forming in a matter of seconds into a wavering, slowly rippling ball of molten goop. Then, before anyone could react, it detached from the ceiling and fell away.

But instead of splatting on the steps at their feet, the sphere of silver defied gravity and flew horizontally, directly into Winston's face. His horrific screams filled the air as he fell and started tumbling down the stairs.

Thomas had a sickening thought as he pushed his way down the stairs after Winston. He didn't know if he was going because he wanted to help him or because he couldn't control his curiosity about this silvery monster-ball.

Winston eventually thumped to a stop, his back coming to rest by chance on one of the steps; they were still nowhere close to the bottom. The brilliant light from the open door up top illuminated everything with perfect clarity. Both of Winston's hands were at his face, pulling at the silver liquid―the ball of molten metal had already melded with the top of his head, consuming the part above the ears. Now its edges were creeping downward like thick syrup, lipping over the ears and covering his eyebrows.

Thomas jumped over the boy's body and spun around to kneel on the step directly below him; Winston pulled and pushed at the silver goop to keep it off his eyes. Surprisingly, it seemed to be working. But the boy was screaming at the top of his lungs, thrashing, his feet kicking the wall.

"Get it off me!" he yelled, his voice so strangled that Thomas almost gave up and ran away. If the stuff hurt that bad ...

It looked like a very dense silver gel. Persistent and stubborn―like it was alive. As soon as Winston pushed a portion of it up and off his eyes, some of it would slip around his fingers from the side and try again. Thomas could see glimpses of the skin on his face when he did this, and it wasn't pretty. Red and blistering.

Winston cried out something unintelligible―his tortured screams could have been in another language altogether. Thomas knew he had to do something. Time had run out.

He reached for the stuff, pulling it away from the boy's head, his hands burned but the metal didn't start to attack them.

It lifted several inches before slipping back down, slapping Winston's ears, he screamed impossibly louder.

"We have to do it together!" Thomas yelled at Winston, determined to get a stronger hold this time. "Listen to me, Winston! We have to do it together! Try to get a grip on it and lift it off your head!"

The other boy didn't show any sign of understanding, his whole body convulsing as he struggled. If Thomas hadn't been on the step below him, he would've tumbled down the rest of the way for sure by now.  
"On the count of three!" Thomas yelled. "Winston! On the count of three!"  
Still no sign he'd heard. Screaming. Thrashing. Kicking. Slapping at the silver.

Tears welled up in Thomas's eyes, or maybe it was sweat trickling down from his forehead. But it stung. And he felt like the air had heated up to a million degrees. His muscles tensed; lances of pain shot through his legs. They were cramping.

"Just do it!" he yelled, ignoring it all and leaning in to try again. "One! Two! Now!"

He gripped the sides of the stretching silver, felt its odd combination of soft toughness, then yanked once again up and away from Winston's head. Winston must've heard, or maybe it was luck, but at the same time, he pushed at the goop with the heels of his hands, like he was trying to rip off his own forehead. The entire mess of silver came off, a wobbly, thick and heavy sheet of the stuff. Thomas didn't hesitate; he flung his arms up and threw the junk over his head and down the stairwell, then spun around on his heels to see what happened.

As it flew through the air, the silver quickly formed back into a sphere, its surface rippling for a moment, then solidifying. It stopped just a few steps down from them, hovered for a second, like it was taking a long and lasting look at its victim, perhaps thinking over what had gone wrong. Then it shot away, flying down the stairway until it disappeared in the darkness far below.

It was gone. For some reason, it hadn't attacked again.

"We've gotta get outta here now." Harriet looked haunted. Winston's partner, whose name Thomas couldn't remember, had gone to help him. The kid was a mess, his hair gone, face bleeding.

"Couldn't agree more." Minho shook his head. The Gladers started to file out into the light.

Somehow it was even hotter after leaving the tunnel, so bright Thomas could hardly see, not to mention how his eyeballs dried out almost instantly.

He met back up with Teresa and the others. Aris and Rachel had taken a bedsheet from one of their packs and thrown it over their heads as slight protection from the brutal sun. They had stripped the dorms of everything useful before leaving.

Thomas followed their lead, finding his own sheet, throwing it over himself and Teresa.

"Thanks," she sidled closer to him to get entirely under the cloth. "So this is the Scorch."

"Apparently." Thomas looked around, nothing but sand in most directions, far off there was a city with a backdrop of mountains. That had to be where they had to go.


	6. Chapter 6

Searing heat, a deserted wasteland. They were supposed to travel a hundred miles due north. A hundred miles in two weeks wasn't a huge ask, but in these conditions, with their water supplies, they could be in trouble very fast.

The town and mountains were due north, Minho was shouting that the town was maybe thirty miles, the mountains sixty.

Harriet had noticed Rachel and Aris's idea of throwing sheets over their heads and was shouting for everyone else to do the same. There were enough sheets for most to get one on their own. But Thomas didn't mind sharing with Teresa.

"We should camp down here, wait till night and run then. I doubt it'll cool down much but the sun won't be beatin' down on us." Sonya was suggesting. Thomas was all for that idea, travelling in this heat in the day seemed suicidal.

"Good idea. Listen up!" Minho shouted at the crowd, hands cupped around his mouth.

"We're gonna hide under our sheets till night, but not back in the tunnel with the death balls. Try to sleep cause we'll be running till dawn." Some people muttered about staying so close to the tunnel but no one really complained, the heat already sucking out most of their strength.

Thomas threw himself down on the sand, deciding that he hated the texture. The Gladers were misshapen lumps of white on the sand, all trying to hide every bit of their skin from the sun. Their sheets shone like futuristic light technology, not giving much protection but it was better than nothing.

 _If we ever see that Ratman again I get to hit him._ Rachel grumbled. _How is it even this hot?_

 _You are a disturbingly violent person. Let's just hope the whole world's not gone like this_. That was Aris, and it was a terrifying thought. If the whole world was scorched. But no, the bus had driven a long way through places that were quite normal, if inundated with Cranks.

 _I think it's only the places near the equator, remember the bus._ Thomas volunteered, sticking his head out to see where the sun was in the sky. It would be perhaps three or four hours till it set, he knew he wouldn't manage to sleep.

Someone started shouting, it sounded like Frypan. Thomas stared around to see what had gotten the cook all excited, leaving the sheet to Teresa. Many other Gladers were staring too.

Far ahead, from the direction of the town, two people were running toward them, their bodies like ghostly forms of darkness in the heat mirage, small plumes of dust rising from their feet.

Thomas got up, thinking of how crazy the cranks in the dorms had been. If these people were like them it might be a fight to get rid of them. Almost everyone had stood now, some clutching knives.

They stopped just a couple of dozen feet in front of the Gladers. A man and a woman, all of their skin covered with odd pieces of cloth, making it impossible to see their faces.  
The two of them stood there, panting as they caught their breath, a sound like sick dogs.  
"Who are you?" Minho called out.

The strangers didn't respond, didn't move. Their chests heaved in and out. Thomas couldn't imagine how anyone could run so far and not die of heat exhaustion.  
"Who are you?" Minho repeated.

Instead of answering, the two strangers split apart and started walking in a broad circle around the bunched-up Gladers. Their eyes, hidden behind slits in the cloth they had covered themselves in, stayed fixed on the Gladers as they made their way in a wide arc, as if sizing them up for a kill. Thomas felt the tension inside him rise, hated when he could no longer see both of them at once. He turned around and watched as they met back up behind the group and once again faced them, standing still.

"There are a whole lot more of us than there are of you," Minho said, his voice betraying his frustration. To threaten them so soon seemed desperate. "Start talking. Tell us who you are."  
"We're Cranks."  
The two words came from the woman, a short burst of guttural annoyance. For no discernible reason she pointed across the Gladers back toward the town from which they'd run.

"Cranks?" Minho said; he had pushed his way through the crowd to be closest to the strangers again. "Just like the ones that tried to break into our building a couple days ago?"

Thomas cringed―these people would have no idea what Minho was talking about. Somehow the Gladers had traveled a long way from wherever that place had been―through the Flat Trans.

"We're Cranks." This time from the man, his voice surprisingly lighter and less gruff than the woman's. But there was no kindness in it. He pointed over the Gladers just like his companion had done. "Came to see if you're Cranks. Came to see if you've got the Flare."

Minho turned to look at Thomas and then a few others, his eyebrows raised. No one said anything. He turned back. "Some dude told us we had the Flare, yeah. What can you tell us about it?"  
"Don't matter," the man responded; the strips of cloth wrapped around his face jiggled with every word. "You got it, you'll know soon enough."

"Well, what do you bloody want?" Newt asked, stepping up to stand next to Minho. "What's it matter to you if we're Cranks or not?"  
The woman responded this time, acting as if she hadn't heard the questions. "How'd you get in the Scorch? Where'd you come from? How'd you get here?"

Thomas was surprised at the ... intelligence evident in her words. The Cranks they'd seen back at the dorm had seemed absolutely insane, like animals. These people were aware enough to realize that their group had appeared out of nowhere. Nothing lay in the opposite direction from the town.  
Minho leaned over to consult with Newt, then turned and stepped closer to Thomas. "What do we tell these people?"  
Thomas had no clue. "I don't know. The truth? It can't hurt."

"The truth?" Minho said sarcastically. "What an idea, Thomas. You're freaking brilliant, as usual." He faced the Cranks again. "We were sent here by WICKED. Came out of a hole just a little while that way, from a tunnel. We're supposed to go one hundred miles to the north, cross the Scorch. Any of that mean a thing to you?"  
Once again, it was as if they hadn't heard a word he'd said.

"Not all Cranks are gone," the man said. "Not all of them are past the Gone." He said that last word in a way that made it sound like the name of a place. "Different ones at different levels. Best you learn who to make friends with and who to avoid. Or kill. Better learn right quick if you're coming our way."

"What's your way?" Minho asked. "You came from that town, right? Is that where all these Cranks live? Is there food and water there?"

The strangers didn't answer, turning and running back towards the town, soon lost in a blur of heat and dust.

What was that? Teresa had come to stand beside Thomas and was staring hard at the disappearing figures.

No idea. Thomas wished he did, there were so many mysteries that might never be answered.

The Gladers were all speculating, talking over each other and demanding quiet until Harriet told them that if they didn't quit she'd have them marching sun or no sun. Thomas just lay back down, the sand had already gotten inside his clothes and it was unbearably hot.

Night came after what felt like decades, lying on the sand, unable to sleep. Thomas doubted anyone had really rested.

"Everybody up. Time to get our butts moving." Minho's only volume now seemed to be yelling.

"You're gonna lose your voice if ya keep screaming everything like that. Not that it'd be a bad thing." Miyoko glared at him.

They didn't need the sheets without the sun so stowed them in their packs. Moving at a pace that seemed slow to Thomas, with his experience of running the Maze, but must have been fast to everyone else. Either way they made a good pace.

After two hours they had a break to eat and drink. The water wasn't going to last more than two days, plenty of time to get to the city. If there was water there.

But WICKED wouldn't dump them somewhere where survival was impossible, that would defeat the object. It was just going to be horrendously difficult.

The night was darker-than-dark, but nowhere near as bad as the tunnel had been. It was easy, almost too easy, which had to mean something was coming for them soon.

Aris and Rachel were discussing the reasons behind the Maze, as Thomas listened their talk kept returning to why more girls managed to survive than boys.

That was very interesting, apparently it had been that way from the start, now leaving them with many more girls than boys. Not that ten would be considered a lot anywhere else.

The group was quiet, eating their food and drinking their water, mindful of every sip.

It had been less than twenty-four hours and Thomas already loathed the Scorch.

Suddenly there was as screaming, a girl's voice, terrified, in pain. There was no discernible source of the sound.

"What the bloody hell is that?" Newt shouted, no one had an answer to give him.

Sonya did a head count, every Glader was present.

"Can't she shut up?" Aris complained, hands half covering his ears.

"Apparently not." Teresa shook her head. "We ought to get moving, it can't mean anything good." She was definitely right.

Thomas sidled over to the leaders.

"Don't you think we oughta get going?" Harriet turned to him so fast he jumped back, but she didn't look angry.

"Yeah, we should. Everybody up! Time to run!" She called to the group, everyone obeyed her.

"I'm the leader here." Minho glared at her. "We should stay, investigate."

"There's nothing for miles. We're going." Harriet insisted, she was right and Minho didn't argue again. Everyone was used to seeing her as leader, he probably also had far more memories than Thomas of her making Alby stand down.

"Fine, what this stick said." The group got up, stowing food and water back into their packs.

They ran hard through the rest of the night. Minho keeping everyone going at a Runner's pace. They all wanted to get away from the inexplicable screaming that seemed to follow them no matter how hard they ran.

The night passed slowly, Thomas was dripping in sweat, covered in dust and dirt. They had to have covered maybe ten miles, could get to the city in the next two days. Ten miles a day meant they could likely reach the safe haven within the deadline without too much difficulty.

If WICKED didn't come up with anything else to throw at them.

When the sun began to reappear they stopped, ate another meal.

"Looks like we're going nocturnal for this. Not a bad idea." Rachel splashed a little water on her hands, using it to wipe the sweat off her face.

"Too bad there's no shelter." Teresa wrinkled her nose. "Everything stinks of sweat, if we're gonna be here for two weeks I'll need noseplugs." She was right, body odour hung over the group like a stinky mist, coming from everyone and settling on everything. The showers at the dorm were a distant, beautiful memory.

They lay under their sheets again, Thomas could feel his skin burn slightly under the thin fabric. Somehow, impossibly, he slept.


	7. Chapter 7

They were only allowed to sleep for four hours before Minho announced it was time to keep moving again. Apparently the plan had changed, Thomas had preferred the old one. But anything that got them out of the Scorch quick was good enough for him.

They walked under the sheets, the wind whipping at them, throwing dust and grit into their faces but bringing no relief from the terrible, impossible heat.

There was no doubt they'd reach the city tomorrow, there they would be able to collect fresh food and water, maybe spend a night under real shelter.

No one said anything much, focussing all their energy on carrying on, the screaming from the night before had disappeared, but Thomas couldn't remember when. Neither could anyone else.

Nightfall brought a slight relief, but not much. They walked until midnight before stopping for more sleep.

Lying down the winds were almost soothing, lulling him to sleep. Just as his mind got hazy from exhaustion, the stars seemed to fade away, and sleep brought him another dream.

 _He's sitting in a chair. Ten or eleven years old. Teresa―she looks so different, so much younger, yet it's still clearly her―sits across from him, a table between them. She's about his age. No one else is in the room, a dark place with only one light―a dull square of yellow in the ceiling directly overhead._ _  
_ _  
_ _"Tom, you need to try harder. Rachel and Aris both got it days ago." she says. Her arms are folded, and even at this younger age, it's a look he doesn't find surprising. It's very familiar. As if he has already known her a long time._ _  
_ _"I am trying." Again it's him speaking, but not really him. It doesn't make sense._ _  
_ _"They'll probably kill us if we can't do this."_ _  
_ _"I know." The younger Thomas imagines three bodies lying in blood on a cold floor, and somehow the older Thomas can see them._ _  
_ _  
_ _"Then try!"_ _  
_ _"I am!"_ _  
_ _"Fine," she says. "You know what? I'm not speaking out loud to you anymore. Never ever again until you can do it."_ _  
_ _"But―"_ _  
_ _  
_Not inside your mind, either. _She's talking in his head. That trick that still freaks him out and he still can't reciprocate._ Starting now. _  
_ _"Teresa, just give me a few more days. I'll get it."_ _  
_ _She doesn't respond._ _  
_ _"Okay, just one more day."_ _  
_ _  
_ _She only stares at him. Then, not even that. She looks down at the table, reaches out and starts scratching a spot in the wood with her fingernail._ _  
_ _"There's no way you're not gonna talk to me. I've got Rachel and Aris anyway."_ _  
_ _No response. And he knows her, despite what he just said. Oh, he knows her._ _  
_ _  
_ _"Fine," he says. He closes his eyes, does what the instructor told him to do. Imagines a sea of black nothingness, interrupted only by the image of Teresa's face. Then, with every last bit of willpower, he forms the words and throws them at her._ _  
_ _  
_You smell like a bag of crap. _  
_ _Teresa smiles, then replies in his mind._ _  
_So do you.

Thomas woke up to the wind whipping at him, the Gladers' sheets whisked away by the gale.

The dream had been another memory, learning the telepathy trick he shared with Teresa, Rachel and Aris. They had all figured it out before him, just like in the Maze.

The sky was black, signifying a storm that would be upon them very soon. A patchy memory that storms in hotter places were always more torrential, heavy rain for days and weeks. And in the Scorch, they could count on it to be ten times worse.

He wanted to wake Teresa, still asleep beside him, Aris and Rachel only a few feet away. Tell them about his dream.

But he needed sleep desperately, and he didn't fight the urge to slip away, this time into nothing.

The light woke him to a dull, gray dawn that finally revealed the thick layer of clouds covering the sky. It also made the endless expanse of desert around them look even more dreary. The city was so close now, only a few hours away.  
The wind tore at Thomas, he could feel a thick layer of grimy filth covering his whole body.

Most of the other Gladers were up and about, taking in the unexpected shift in the weather, deep in conversations he couldn't hear.

 _A storm, in the desert, in a world with jacked up weather systems. We really should get moving._ Teresa was right, the telepathy was a godsend, there was no way they would hear their real voices through the wind.

 _How did you sleep so long?_ Rachel came over, eating half a granola bar. She had left the packing and sheet to Aris.

 _I had another dream_. Thomas started, all three of them stared at him.

 _What about?_ It was freaky to talk like this, when they were right next to each other. They must have looked like half-Gone cranks to anyone watching.

 _We were learning our telepathy. I couldn't figure it out so Teresa was threatening me with silent treatment._ Thomas met her eyes, still piercingly bright in the dim light. _You said some people would kill us if I didn't get it soon._

Minho was shouting at the top of his voice, that they were going to get to the city before the storm soaked them, replenish their supplies.

 _Rain doesn't sound bad, we could all use a shower_. Aris was right, but being caught in a storm would end badly, knowing their luck.

The group set off, heads bowed against the winds. Every so often a sheet was blown away and someone would shout in annoyance.

They were only a couple of miles away from the closest buildings when they came across an old man lying in the sand on his back, wrapped in several blankets. Jack had been the one to spot him first, and soon Thomas and the others were packed in a circle around the guy, staring down at him.

Thomas's stomach turned as he studied the man more closely, but he couldn't look away. The stranger had to be a hundred years old, though it was hard to tell―the wear and tear of the sun might've made him just look that way. Wrinkled, leathery face. Scabs and sores where his hair should've been. Dark, dark skin.

He was alive, breathing deeply, but he gazed at the sky with an emptiness in his eyes. As if he was waiting for some god to come down and take him away, end his miserable life. He showed no sign he'd even noticed the Gladers approach.

"Hey! Old man!" Minho shouted, always the tactful one. "What're you doing out here?"  
Thomas had a hard enough time hearing the words over the ripping wind; he couldn't imagine that the ancient guy could make anything out. But was he blind as well? Maybe.

Thomas nudged Minho out of the way and knelt down right beside the man's face. The melancholy there was heartbreaking. He held his hand out and waved it right above the old guy's eyes.  
Nothing. No blink, no movement. It was only after Thomas pulled his hand back that the man's eyelids slowly drooped closed, then open again. Just once.

"Sir?" Thomas asked. "Mister?" The words sounded strange to him, conjured up from the murky memories of his past. He certainly hadn't used them since being sent to the Glade and the Maze. "Can you hear me? Can you talk?"  
The man did that slow blink again, but didn't say anything.

Newt knelt next to Thomas and spoke loudly over the wind. "This guy's a bloody gold mine if we can get him to tell us stuff about the city. Looks harmless, probably knows what to expect when we go in there."  
Thomas sighed. "Yeah, but he doesn't even seem to be able to hear us, much less have a long talk."

"Keep trying," Minho said from behind them. "You're officially our foreign ambassador, Thomas. Get the dude to open up and tell us about the good ol' days."

For some odd reason Thomas wanted to say something funny back, but he couldn't think of anything. If he'd been funny in his old life, every scrap of humor had certainly vanished in the memory swipe. "Okay," he said.

He scooted as close to the man's head as he could, then positioned himself so their eyes were square, just a couple of feet apart. "Sir? We really need your help!" He felt bad for shouting, worried the old man might take it the wrong way, but he had no choice. The wind was gusting stronger and stronger. "We need you to tell us if it's safe to go inside the city! We can carry you there if you need help yourself. Sir? Sir!"

The man's dark eyes had been looking past him, up at the sky, but now they shifted, slowly, until they focused on his. Awareness filled them like dark liquid poured slowly into a glass. His lips parted, but nothing came out except a small cough.

Thomas's hopes lifted. "My name is Thomas. These are my friends. We've been walking through the desert for a couple of days, and we need more water and food. What do you ..."  
He trailed off when the man's eyes flicked back and forth, a sudden hint of panic there.  
"It's okay, we won't hurt you," Thomas quickly said. "We're ... we're the good guys. But we'd really appreciate it if―"

The man's left hand shot out from beneath the blankets wrapped around him and clasped Thomas's wrist, gripping it with a strength far greater than seemed possible. Thomas cried out in surprise and instinctively tried to pull his arm free, but couldn't. He was shocked by the man's strength. He could barely budge against the man's iron manacle of a fist.

"Hey!" he shouted. "Let go of me!"  
The man shook his head, those dark eyes full more of fear than any kind of belligerence. His lips parted again, and a rough, indecipherable whisper rose from his mouth. He didn't loosen his grip.

Thomas gave up the struggle to free his arm; instead, he relaxed and leaned forward to put his ear close to the stranger's mouth. "What'd you say!" he shouted.

The man spoke again, a dry rasp that was unsettling, spooky. Thomas caught the words storm and terror and bad people. None of them sounded very inspiring.

"One more time!" Thomas yelled, his head still cocked so his ear rested only inches above the man's face.

This time Thomas understood most of it, missing only a few words. "Storm coming ... full of terror ... brings out ... stay away ... bad people."

The man shot up into a sitting position, his eyes full and white around his irises. "Storm! Storm! Storm!" He didn't stop, repeating the word over and over; a mucus-thick strand of saliva finally crested over his bottom lip and swung back and forth like a hypnotist's pendulum.

He released Thomas's arm, and Thomas scooted back on his butt to get away. Even as he did so, the wind intensified, seemed to go from strong gusts to outright hurricane-strength gales of terror, just like the man had said. The world was lost in the sound of roaring, screaming air. Thomas felt as if his hair and clothes might rip off at any second. Almost all of the Gladers' sheets went flying, flapping over the ground and into the air like an army of ghosts. Food skittered in all directions.

Teresa and Aris pulled Thomas to his feet, the wind almost knocking all three of them over.

Harriet was shouting words that were carried away by the wind before they got anywhere close to Thomas, she pointed at the city, to the Gladers, set off at a run.

Everyone followed, Thomas and his friends bringing up the rear. Luckily they weren't going directly into the wind, which would have proved impossible.

The blowing dust made it almost impossible to see, even the huge buildings of the city became only vague silhouettes.

The wind had gained a rough edge, pelting him with sand and grit until it hurt. Every once in a while a larger object would fly by, scaring him half out of his wits. A branch. Something that looked like a small mouse. A piece of roofing tile. And countless scraps of paper. All swirling through the air like snowflakes.

Then came the lightning.

They'd halved the distance to the building―maybe more than that―when the bolts came from nowhere, and the world around him erupted in light and thunder.

They fell from the sky in jagged streaks, like bars of white light, slamming into the ground and throwing up massive amounts of scorched earth. The crushing sound was too much to bear, and Thomas's ears began to go numb, the horrific noise fading to a distant hum as he went deaf.

They kept running, people fell and got back up. Thomas hauled Teresa back to her feet, didn't let go of her hand. He couldn't hear anything, the dust made it hard to breathe.

The lightning kept coming, it wouldn't be long before someone was struck, burnt to a cinder like a forgotten match.  
And where was the rain? Thomas wondered. Where was the rain? What kind of a storm was this?

A bolt of pure white zigzagged from the sky and exploded on the ground right in front of Thomas and Teresa, knocking them back. Wind buffeting their bodies as they struggled to stand again. Aris and Rachel were far ahead.

He heard a ringing now, a steady, high-pitched buzz that felt like nails in his eardrums. The wind tried to eat his clothes, dirt stung his skin, darkness swirled around him like living night, broken only by the flashes of lightning. Then he saw it, a horrific image made even spookier by the on-again-off-again source of light.

It was Jack. He lay on the ground, inside a small crater, writhing as he clutched his knee. There was nothing below that―shin, ankle, and foot obliterated by the burst of pure electricity from the sky. Blood that looked like black tar gushed from the hideous wound, making a paste of horror with the dirt. His clothes had been burned off, leaving him naked, injuries spreading across his whole body. He had no hair. And it looked like his eyeballs had..

Thomas spun around and collapsed to the ground, coughing as he spit up everything in his stomach. There was nothing they could do for Jack. No way. Nothing. But he was still alive. Though the thought shamed him, Thomas was glad he couldn't hear the screams. He didn't know if he could bear to even look at him again.

Teresa was pulling him away, her mouth open, shouting words he couldn't hear.

 _Come on, we can't help him_. Thomas let her drag him.

They stumbled forward, following the others as they ran. People fell to the lightning, no one Thomas recognised, but he tried not to look too hard.

There was nothing to focus on but running, survival. Thomas hardly cared if he was permanently deaf, as long as he lived.

Another blast of white threw him and Teresa backwards again. Teresa, even with her holding his hand he had momentarily forgotten her. The bolt of lightning bringing his humanity back.

The bolt had struck where Minho had been running. Minho. Thomas looked for him as he struggled to get back up, helped Teresa, pushing her forward.

Flames danced on the edge of his vision. It was Minho, his clothes were on fire.

Thomas fell to his knees beside his friend, throwing handfuls of sand over him in an attempt to suffocate the flames. Teresa had come back, was helping him. Minho rolled on the sand, using his hands to beat at the flames on his chest. A few stragglers ran past, but they didn't stop. Thomas didn't blame them for it.

In seconds the fire was out. Thomas and Teresa pulled Minho up, dragging him by the shoulders.

"Come on!" Thomas screamed, unable to hear his own words. Minho wrapped one arm around Thomas's shoulder, the other around Teresa's. The three moved as fast as they could towards the building, mostly dragging Minho.

The lightning continued to strike the sand, leaving lumps of fulgurite behind. All the Gladers were heading for the buildings, but there seemed to be significantly fewer than that morning.

Aris reached the door of the first building before anyone else, using his elbow to knock away sharp shards of glass before entering, pulling Rachel after him.

That they were both alive and unhurt made Thomas feel a little better, he could see Newt, Harriet, Sonya, Frypan.

Miyoko and Newt appeared, taking Minho from Thomas and Teresa, dragging him into the gloom. Sonya waved a few Gladers in before entering. Teresa held Thomas's hand again, pulling him forward, towards shelter.

The rain began just as they entered. The terrible storm finally weeping for what it had done to them.

* * *

 **A/N: Please tell me what you thought of this chapter, I did copy some from the book as you can probably tell. Thank you to everyone who has shown interest in this story.**


	8. Chapter 8

The rain fell in impossible torrents. A small part of Thomas wished he had a container of some sort, it could well be drinkable.

The larger part of him never wanted to go outside again.

He sat on an old, half collapsed crate with Teresa, no one spoke. Thomas counted about ten boys and twenty girls in the room, all slumped just like him. That meant twenty people were dead, unless they had found alternative shelter, which was unlikely.

After an unknown period of time Thomas could hear the pounding of the rain outside, maybe he wouldn't be deaf after all.

The dull gray light coming from the windows did little to fight off the cold darkness inside the building. The other Gladers sat hunched up or lying on their sides around the room. Teresa was turned away from Thomas, staring blankly at the wall.

Minho was curled up in a ball at Thomas's feet, barely moving; it looked as if every shift sent waves of burning pain through his nerves. Newt was there, also, close, leaning against Sonya. Harriet moved silently, crossing off names on her list of survivors. Thomas watched her hands, slashing across the paper. It almost gave the deaths finality, proved that they were gone.

Rachel and Aris sat opposite Thomas, arms wrapped around each other. He couldn't tell if they were awake or asleep. Everyone seemed lifeless, Harriet completed her grim task like a robot, eventually lying on the sandy floor, curling into a ball. Thomas thought she might have been crying, so many dead, and she must have known them all. Must have felt responsible for them.

Eventually Thomas slept, there was nothing in his dreams tonight. He was too exhausted even for memories.

He was woken by the light of morning streaming through the windows. When had night fallen? How long had he slept? A few people were moving and Thomas didn't rise to join them, his head rested on Teresa's leg but he didn't know how it had got there.

Hunger gnawed at his insides, like a trapped wild beast.

The storm was gone. He noticed, getting up and staring out of a broken window pane. The impossible heat and brightness of the Scorch had returned, it was almost comforting.

Newt lay with his back against the wall, staring sadly at a blank spot in the middle of the room. Somehow he had switched places with Sonya and she now leant against him, one arm pinned between his back and the wall.  
"You okay, there?" Thomas asked.  
Newt slowly turned to him; his eyes were distant until he seemed to snap out of his thoughts and focus on Thomas. "Okay? Yeah, I guess I'm okay. We're alive―guess that's all that bloody matters anymore." The bitterness in his voice couldn't have been stronger.

"Don't you start." Sonya looked between them both sleepily. "And get off my arm." Newt moved a little to accommodate her request. She turned away, began to snore again.

"Sometimes I wonder," Thomas murmured.  
"Wonder what?"  
"If being alive matters. If being dead might be a lot easier."  
"Please. I don't believe for one second you really think that."

Thomas's gaze had lowered while he'd delivered the depressing sentiment and he looked up sharply at Newt's retort. Then he smiled, and it felt good. "You're right. Just trying to sound as miserable as you." He could almost convince himself that it was true. That he didn't feel as if dying would be the easy way out.

Newt gestured wearily toward Minho. "What bloody happened to him?"  
"Lightning strike somehow caught his clothes on fire. How it did that without frying his brain I have no idea. But we were able to beat it out before it did too much damage, I think."  
"Before it did too much damage? I'd hate to see what you think real damage looks like."

Thomas closed his eyes for a second and rested his head against the wall. "Hey, like you said―he's alive, right? And he still has clothes on, which means it couldn't have burned his skin in too many places. He'll be fine."  
"Yeah, good that," Newt replied with a sarcastic chuckle. "Remind me not to hire you as my buggin' doctor anytime soon."

"Ohhhh." This came from Minho, a long, drawn-out groan. His eyes fluttered open, then squinted as he caught Thomas's gaze. "Oh, man. I'm shucked. I'm shucked for good."  
"How bad is it?" Newt asked him.

Instead of answering, Minho very slowly pushed himself up to a sitting position, grunting and wincing with every small move. But he finally did it, legs crossed beneath him. His clothes were blackened and ragged. In some places where skin was exposed, raw red blisters peeked out like menacing alien eyeballs. But even though Thomas wasn't a doctor and had no clue about such things, his instincts told him the burns were manageable and would heal pretty quickly. Most of Minho's face had been spared, and he still had all his hair―filthy as it was.

"Can't be too bad if you can do that," Thomas said with a sly smile.  
"Shuck it," Minho responded. "I'm tougher than nails. I could still kick your pony-lovin' butt with twice this pain."

Thomas shrugged. "I do love ponies. Wish I could eat one right now." His stomach grumbled and gurgled.  
"Was that a joke?" Minho said. "Did Thomas the boring slinthead actually make a joke?"  
"I think he did" was Newt's response.  
"I'm a funny guy," Thomas said with a shrug.

Neither boy responded, Minho looked around for a moment until his eyes settled on Miyoko leant against an abandoned door, then he instantly seemed to calm. Newt got up, careful not to jostle Sonya, he made his way to Harriet and eased the notebook from her grasp.

"How many?" Minho asked, gentler than Thomas had ever heard him say anything.

Newt flicked through the pages. "Winston's gone - never had a chance, and Qian - of course." Thomas suddenly remembered that was - had been - her name. "Stan, Tim, Jeff, Leo, Nia, Sue, Ada…" None of the names of the dead meant anything to Thomas, but there were far too many of them. Newt put the notebook back in Harriet's hand, she didn't wake.

There were only twenty-three Gladers lying about the room. Almost a hundred had lived in the Maze maybe three weeks ago.

How could I be part of WICKED? he thought. How could I have been any part of this? He knew he should tell them about his memory-dreams, but he just couldn't.

"So nineteen died in the storm." Minho finished. Newt glared with disapproval at his cavalier attitude but nodded.

"Dude," Minho said. "How're we gonna fight our way through this city with this many people? There could be hundreds of Cranks in this place for all we know. Thousands. And we don't have a clue what to expect from them!"

Newt let out a big breath. "And that's all you can buggin' think about? What about the people who died, Minho? What about them?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Minho held his hands up, palms facing Newt. "Slim it nice and calm, brother. I didn't ask to be the shuck leader. You wanna cry all day about what's happened, fine. But that's not what a leader does. A leader figures out where to go and what to do after that's done."

"Well, guess that's why you got the job, then," Newt said. But then a look of apology washed over his face. "Whatever. Seriously, sorry. I just ..."  
"Yeah, I'm sorry, too." Minho rolled his eyes, though, and Thomas hoped against hope that Newt didn't notice because his gaze had fallen to the floor again.

Rachel and Aris scooted over then, and Thomas had never been more thankful for their presence.

"Ever seen anything like that storm?" Rachel looked around the room, obviously concluding who was still there.

"Didn't seem natural. Even in my klunky memories, I'm pretty sure stuff like that doesn't happen normally."

"Nothing's been natural since the Box." She smiled then, but the joy had been sucked from it.

"But remember what the Rat Man said and that lady told you on the bus," Minho said. "Sun flares, and the whole world burning like hell itself. That'd screw up the climate plenty enough to make crazy storms like that pop up. I have a feeling we're lucky it wasn't worse."  
"Not sure lucky's the first word I'd think of," Aris said.  
"Yeah, well."

Newt pointed at the broken glass of the door, where the glow of sunrise had brightened into the same white brilliance they'd grown accustomed to their first couple of days out in the Scorch. "Least it's over. We better start thinking about what we're gonna do next."  
"See," Minho said. "You're just as heartless as me. And you're right."

Thomas remembered the image of the Cranks at the windows back at the dorm. Like living nightmares, missing only a death certificate to make them official zombies. "Yeah, we better figure things out before we have a bunch of those crazies show up. But I'm telling you, we gotta eat first. We gotta find food." The last word almost hurt, he wanted some so badly.

"Food?"

Thomas pulled in a gasp of surprise; the voice had come from above. He looked up just as the others did. A face looked down at them from the shredded remains of the third floor, that of a young Hispanic man. His eyes were slightly wild, and Thomas felt a belt of tension cinch inside him.

"Who're you?" Minho shouted.  
Then, to Thomas's utter disbelief, the man jumped through the jagged hole in the ceiling, falling toward them. At the last second, he crumpled into a human ball and rolled three times, then sprang up and landed on his feet.

"My name is Jorge," he said, his arms outstretched as if he expected applause for his acrobatics. "And I'm the Crank who rules this place."


	9. Chapter 9

The Gladers who weren't sleeping, more than Thomas expected, all turned to stare at the guy who had literally dropped in on them. He wasn't like the psychos from the dorms but had a crazy glint in his eyes and had already confessed to being a Crank.

"You people forget how to talk?" Jorge asked, a smile on his face that looked completely out of place in the shattered building. "Or you just scared of the Cranks? Scared we'll pull you to the ground and eat your eyeballs out? Mmm, tasty. I love a good eyeball when the grub's runnin' short. Tastes like undercooked eggs."

Thomas instinctively moved closer to Rachel and Aris, wishing Teresa was beside them as well, she was where they had been sleeping, obviously not wanting to move. He met her eyes and she held his gaze but said nothing through their telepathy.

Minho took it on himself to answer, doing a great job of hiding his pain. "You admit you're a Crank? That you're freaking crazy?"

"He just said he likes the taste of eyeballs." This from Frypan. "I think that qualifies as crazy."

Jorge laughed, and there was a definite tone of menace in it. "Come, come, my new friends. I'd only eat your eyes if you were already dead. Course, I might help you get that way if I needed to. Understand what I'm saying?" All mirth vanished from his expression, replaced with a look of stern warning. Almost as if he was daring them to confront him.

No one spoke for a long moment; the Gladers came to huddle closer together. Harriet, Miyoko and Sonya joined Newt and Minho, all of them staring the Crank down. Despite how disturbing the guy was, Thomas didn't like his chances against the five of them.

"How many of you are here?" Harriet demanded, obviously trying to calculate their chances.

Jorge's gaze snapped to her. "How many? How many Cranks? We're all Cranks around here, hermana."

"That's not what she meant, and you know it," Newt interjected flatly.

Jorge started pacing the room, stepping over and around Gladers, taking everyone in as he spoke. "Lot of things you people need to understand about how things work in this city. About the Cranks and WICKED, about the government, about why they left us here to rot in our disease, kill each other, go completely and utterly insane.

"About how there's different levels of the Flare. About how it's too late for you―the ill is gonna catch ya if you don't already have it. But that's not the way it's gonna work, comprende? Those who are at a disadvantage are those who speak first. I want to know everything about you. Where you came from, why you're here, what in God's name your purpose could be. Now."

Minho let out a low, dangerous-sounding chuckle. "We're the ones at a disadvantage?" Minho swivelled his head around mockingly. "Unless that lightning storm fried my retinas, I'd say there are twenty-three of us and one of you. Maybe you should start talking."

The other four gave Minho identical, incredulous 'don't antagonize the crazy guy' looks that he pointedly ignored.

Jorge looked at Minho for a long time, his face blank. "You didn't just say that to me, did you? Please tell me you didn't just speak to me like a dog. You have ten seconds to apologize."

Minho looked over at Thomas with a smirk.

"One," Jorge said. "Two. Three. Four."

Thomas tried to shoot a look of warning to Minho, nodded at him. Do it.

Miyoko whispered something Thomas couldn't hear, but she sounded annoyed.

"Five. Six."

"Do it," Thomas finally said aloud.

"Seven. Eight."

Jorge's voice was rising with each number. Thomas thought he caught a glimpse of movement somewhere far above, just a blur of streaking shadow. Maybe Minho noticed it, too; any arrogance drained from his face.

"Nine."

"I'm sorry," Minho blurted out, with little feeling.

"I don't think you meant that," Jorge said. Then he kicked Minho in the leg.

Thomas's hands clenched into fists when his friend cried out in pain; the Crank must've gotten him right in a burnt spot.

"Say it with meaning, hermano."

Jorge pulled his leg back and kicked Minho again, twice as hard in the same spot. "Say it with meaning!" He screamed the last word with a harshness that sounded crazed.

Minho wailed, grabbing the wound with both hands. "I'm ... sorry," he said between heavy breaths, his voice strained and full of pain. The man backed off a little, and Minho seemed almost ready to strike before Miyoko and Newt grabbed his arms. Luckily, he did have the sense not to struggle.

Jorge looked at the two Gladers holding Minho back, smiled again, then made some sort of gesture to the ceiling.

Shuck wasn't the word Rachel muttered, backing away from the hole the crank had jumped from. Thomas scooted away to join Teresa, she reached out, squeezed his hand then let go. Everyone stared at the hole that ropes were now appearing from.

A few more Cranks dropped to the ground from above. Some of them did the jump-and-roll like Jorge had done; others slid down ropes and landed squarely on their feet. All of them quickly gathered in a pack behind their leader, maybe fifteen of them. Men and women; a few were teenagers. All filthy and dressed in tattered clothing. Most of them skinny and frail-looking.

The situation was deteriorating rapidly. How did they get out of this?

"Listen," Thomas said, slowly getting to his feet, hoping Minho wouldn't be stupid enough to try anything. "There's something about us. We're not just random shanks who showed up on your doorstep. We're valuable. Alive, not dead." It was a huge gamble that this would work, but if it did they would be safe.

The anger on Jorge's face lessened ever so slightly. Maybe a spark of curiosity. But what he said was "What's a shank?"

Thomas almost―almost―laughed. An irrational response that somehow would've seemed appropriate. "Me, a girl I pick and you. Ten minutes. Alone. That's all I ask. Bring all the weapons you need." It was a risk to ask to bring a girl too, especially one he chose. But going to talk to someone this unstable without backup seemed very stupid.

Jorge did laugh at that, more of a wet snort than anything. "Sorry to burst your bubble, kid, but I don't think I'll need any. You've thirty seconds to pick a chick."

Thomas ignored the jab and considered who he should take. Rachel and Teresa, as his best friends, were immediate choices, but they gave no real advantage, so he pushed away the emotion fuelled response.

"Harriet." He called out, just before Jorge finished his countdown.

Everyone seemed surprised at that.

Good call. Teresa told him, that made Thomas immediately feel much more secure in the decision. The former leader of the Gladers was a logical choice.

"Ten minutes," the Crank finally said. "Rest of you stay here, watch these punks. If I give the word, let the death games begin." He held a hand out, gesturing to a dark hallway that led from the room on the side across from the broken doors.

Thomas went to follow Jorge, Harriet was saying something quickly to Newt and Sonya then joined him.

They were led into a pitch black room at the end of a damp corridor, lit when a piece of canvas was pulled from over the window. The only furniture was a few dilapidated chairs set around a table, Jorge walked to the other side and sat facing them, his back to the window.

"Sit, and talk." Thomas did as he was told, Harriet the same. She was calm and collected in a way that Thomas envied, it likely stemmed from practice.

"Okay." He hesitated. One word. So far, not so good. He pulled in a breath. "Look, I heard you mention WICKED back there. We know all about those guys. It'd be really interesting to hear what you have to say about them."  
Jorge didn't budge; his expression didn't change. "I'm not the one talking right now. You are."

"Yeah, I know." Thomas scooted his chair a little closer to the table. Then he pushed it back and put a foot up on his knee. He needed to calm down and just let the words flow. "Well, this is hard because I don't know what you know. So I guess I'll just pretend like you're stupid to the whole thing."

"I'd strongly advise you never to use the word stupid with me again."  
Thomas had to force himself to swallow, his throat tight with fear. "Just a figure of speech."  
"Get on with it."

Thomas took another deep breath. "We used to be a group of about a hundred guys and girls. We started the scorch with thirty girls and twenty guys. Now we're down to eleven boys and twenty-two girls.." A prick of pain stuck him at that. "I don't know all the details, but WICKED is some kind of organization that's doing a whole load of nasty things to us for some reason. We started in a place called the Glade, inside a stone maze, surrounded by these creatures called Grievers."

Harriet started to talk then, so much better than Thomas could've.

"We managed to escape from there, lost a lot of people. We were sent to cross the Scorch by WICKED, they infected us with the Flare and we've got seventy miles to go to a Safe Haven where they'll cure us. We started a few days ago." She stated the facts in a perfectly detached manner, Thomas thought of an ambassador of some sort.

"We only came into your building to get away from the lightning storm. It cost us fourteen people and most of our supplies. I'm the leader, no matter what that idiot Minho or his tattoo say, these shanks listen to me and we won't harm you. We won't steal anything from you but if you could provide us with a little food and water we would be very grateful. We have some medical supplies you could have." She finished, scratching her short hair.

"You speak well girl. Shame you weren't the first one I talked to." Thomas wondered if Jorge would request more information but he didn't, Harriet had laid it all out.  
"So there must be something special about us," Thomas said, trying to wrap things up. "They can't be doing this just to be nasty. What'd be the point?"

"Speaking of points," Jorge responded, the first he'd spoken in at least ten minutes, the allotted time already gone. "What's yours?"  
Thomas waited. This was it. His only chance.

"Well?" Jorge pushed.  
Thomas went for it. "If you ... help us ... I mean, if you, or maybe just a few of you, go with us and help us make it to the safe haven ..."  
"Yeah?"

"Then maybe you'll be safe, too. ..." And this was what Thomas had planned all along―had been building toward―the hope strung out by the Rat Man. "They told us we have the Flare. And that if we make it to the safe haven, we'll all be cured. They said they have a cure. If you help us get there, maybe you can get it, too." Thomas stopped talking and looked at Jorge earnestly.

Something had changed―slightly―in the Crank's face at that last thing he'd said, and Thomas knew they had won. The look was brief, but it was definitely hope, quickly replaced with a blank indifference. Yet Thomas knew what he'd seen.

"A cure," the Crank repeated.  
"A cure." Thomas was determined to say as little as possible from here on out―he'd done his best.  
Jorge leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking as if about to break, and folded his arms. He lowered his eyebrows in a look of contemplation. "What's your name?"

Thomas was surprised by the question. Felt sure, in fact, that he'd already told him. Or at least it seemed like he should have told him at some point. But then again, this whole scenario wasn't exactly your typical get-acquainted affair.  
"Your name?" Jorge repeated. "I'm assuming you have one, hermano. I know this one's Harriet." He gestured vaguely to her but she didn't respond.  
"Oh. Yeah. Sorry. It's Thomas."

Another flash across Jorge's face―this time something like ... recognition. Mixed with surprise. "Thomas, huh. You go by Tommy? Tom, maybe?"

That gave Thomas pause, Newt called him Tommy, but no one else ever had. Teresa called him Tom, and Rachel had used it a couple of times, he thought Aris might have as well but couldn't quite remember.

"No, just Thomas." He answered probably too quickly, Tom was for his best friends.

 _What's going on in there Tom, times up?_ It was Rachel. Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

 _I think we've got him Rach._ Thomas hadn't used her nickname since the first night he had spent in the Maze. He wondered if they had ever had nicknames for Teresa and Aris, such an odd thing to wonder about right now.

"Okay, Harriet, Thomas. Let me ask you something. Do you have the slightest clue in those squishy brains of yours what the Flare does to people? Do I look like someone who has a hideous disease to you?"  
That seemed an impossible question to answer without getting your face beaten in, but Thomas went with the safest bet. "No."  
"No? No to both questions?"  
"Yes. I mean, no. I mean ... yes, the answer to both questions is no."

Jorge smiled―nothing but an uptick of the right corner of his mouth―and Thomas thought he must be enjoying every second of this. "The Flare works in stages, muchachos. Every person in this city has it, and I'm not shocked to hear that you and your sissy friends do, too. Someone like me is in the beginning, a Crank in name only. I caught it just a few weeks ago, tested positive at the quarantine checkpoint. The government's trying their damnedest to keep the sick and the well separate. Ain't working. Saw my whole world go straight in the crap hole. Was sent here. Fought to capture this building with a bunch of other newbies."

"My friends out there with the weapons are all in the same boat as me. But you go and take a nice stroll around the city and you'll see what happens as time goes by. You'll see the stages, see what it's like to be past the Gone, though you might not live to remember it for very long. And we don't even have any of the numbing agent here. The Bliss. None."

"Who sent you here?" Thomas asked, saving his curiosity about this numbing agent for later.  
"WICKED―same as you. Only we're not special like you say you are. WICKED was set up by the surviving governments to fight the disease, and they claim that this city has something to do with it. Don't know much else."

Thomas wanted to ask about WICKED, but Harriet gave him a shut-up look and he decided to take her advice.

"Now we're not here to debate what WICKED does hermanos, only their chancellor really knows what they're up to. What makes you think they have a cure?" Jorge commanded Thomas's attention once again, they needed to come up with compelling reasons, fast.

"Obviously we don't know that at all. But why not at least try? If you help us get there, you have a small chance. If you kill us, you have zero chance. Only a full-gone Crank would choose the second option." Harriet was being as rational as ever, Jorge laughed, actually laughed without malice.

"There's something about you kids. Few minutes ago I wanted to stab your friend in the eyeballs and then do the same to the rest of ya. But I'll be licked if you haven't half convinced me."

Thomas shrugged, trying to keep his face calm. "All I care about is surviving one more day. All I want is to make it through this city, and then I'll worry about what comes next. And you know what else?" He braced himself to act tougher than he felt.  
Jorge raised his eyebrows. "What's that?"

"If stabbing you in the eyeballs could get me to tomorrow, I'd do it right now. But I need you. We all need you." Thomas wondered if he could ever actually do such a thing even as he said it.  
But it worked.

The Crank eyed Thomas for a drawn-out moment, then stuck out a hand across the table. "I believe we have ourselves a deal, hermano. For many reasons."  
Thomas reached out and shook. And even though he was filled with relief, it took everything he had not to show it. Harriet shook too, but firmly, quickly, standing as soon as she had done so, eager to leave.

But then Jorge brought it all crashing down. "I just have one condition. That ratty kid who insulted me? Think I heard you call him Minho?"  
"Yeah?" Thomas asked in a weak voice, his heart thumping all over again.  
"He dies."


	10. Chapter 10

"No." Harriet said immediately. "He's an idiot and all, but he just got struck by lightning. Can't you give him some slack?"

"No?" Jorge repeated with a look of surprise. "I offer you a chance to make it through a city full of vicious Cranks ready to eat you alive, and you say no? To my one little itsy-bitsy request? That does not make me happy."

"It wouldn't be smart," Thomas interrupted. He had no idea how he was able to maintain his calm expression, where this bravery was coming from. But something told him it was the only way they could survive with this Crank.

Jorge leaned forward again, placed his elbows on the table. But this time he didn't clasp his hands; instead, he balled them into fists. His knuckles cracked as he looked between them both. "Is it your goal in life to piss me off until I cut your arteries open one by one?"

"If you kill Minho, you lose the skills he brings. He's our best fighter, and he's not scared of anything. Maybe he's crazy, but we need him."

"But he made me angry," Jorge said tightly; his fists had not relaxed in the slightest. "He made me look like a little girl in front of my people. And that's not ... acceptable."

Thomas noted that the man sounded like a child but didn't dare point it out.

"So punish him. Make him look like a little girl. But killing him doesn't help us. The more bodies we have that can fight, the better our chances. I mean, you live here. Do I really need to tell you this?" Harriet was using her 'I-am-in-charge-don't-you-mess-with-me-look' Jorge did seem slightly cowed. Thomas would have to get her to teach him.

"Okay," the Crank said. "Okay. But it has nothing to do with your lame attempt to talk me into it. I'll spare him because I just made up my mind about something."

"What?" Thomas didn't dare say anything.

"You don't really know all the details behind this test or experiment or whatever it is that WICKED is putting you through. Maybe the more of you that make it back―to that safe haven―the better chances you have of getting the cure. I think it's in my best interests to make sure all of you make it now."

"We're gonna need stealth better than numbers, so I'm only taking one of my group with me. Brenda, she's a genius, we'll need her brain. And if we do make it, and it ends up that there's no cure for us, then I don't think I need to tell you what the consequences will be. Don't say a word out there or those other Cranks will be all over us."

That seemed easy enough, Thomas was eager to get back to his other friends.

Jorge got up, walked to the door and opened it. Thomas and Harriet followed him.

"All right, everybody listen!" Jorge announced when they re-entered the large torn-up room. "We have come to a resolution." 

"First, we need to get these people food. I know it seems crazy to share our hard-earned grub with a bunch of strangers, but I think we could use their help. Give 'em the pork and beans―I'm sick of that horse crap anyway." One of the Cranks snickered, a skinny runt of a kid whose eyes darted back and forth. "Second, being the grand gentleman and saint that I am, I've decided not to kill the punk who insulted me. When we've got them fed up so they don't drop dead on us I'll cut off his tongue."

Minho looked about to charge Jorge but a pretty teenage girl with long, surprisingly clean hair put a knife to his throat. Thomas hoped she was the Brenda that had been mentioned. The blade was positioned in such a way that Minho couldn't talk without risking serious harm. Miyoko was obviously holding back laughter.

"Here's the plan," Jorge said calmly. "Brenda and I will escort these moochers to the stash, let 'em eat up. Then we'll all meet on the Tower, let's say one hour from now." He looked at his watch. "Make that noon on the dot. We'll bring up lunch for the rest of you."

"Why just you and Brenda?" someone asked. Thomas didn't see who at first, then realized a man had said it―probably the oldest person in the room. "What if they jump you? There's eleven of them to two of you."

Jorge squinted―a scoffing look. "Thanks for the math lesson, Barkley. Next time I forget how many toes I have, I'll be sure and spend some counting time with you. For now, shut your flappin' lips and lead everybody to the Tower. If these punks try anything, Brenda will slash Mr. Minho to tiny bits while I beat the living hell out of the rest of 'em. They can barely stand they're so weak. Now get!"

Relief swam through Thomas. Once separated from the others, surely Jorge meant to run. Surely he didn't mean to go through with the punishment.

The man named Barkley was old but looked tough, veined muscles stretching the sleeves of his shirt. He held a nasty dagger in one hand and a big hammer in the other. "Fine," he said after a long stare down with his leader. "But if they do jump you and slit your throat, we'll get along just fine without ya."  
"Thanks for the kind words, hermano. Now get, or we'll have double the fun on the Tower."

Barkley laughed as if to salvage some dignity, then started off down the same hallway Thomas and Jorge had used. He waved his arm in a "follow me" gesture and soon every last Crank was shuffling after him except Jorge and the pretty girl with the long brown hair. She still had her knife at Minho's neck, but the good part was that she had to be Brenda.

Thomas wandered over to Teresa, Rachel and Aris, trying to look unconcerned but likely failing spectacularly. Just being with the three of them made him feel calm and safe, no matter the situation.

Movement from Brenda grabbed Thomas's attention. He looked to see her drop the knife away from Minho and step back, absently wiping the small trace of blood there on her pants. "I really would've killed you, ya know," she said in a slightly scratchy voice. Almost husky. "Charge Jorge again and I'll sever an artery."

Minho wiped at his small wound with a thumb, then looked at the bright red smear. "That's one sharp knife. Makes me like you more."  
Newt and Frypan groaned simultaneously.

"Looks like I'm not the only Crank standing here," Brenda responded. "You're even more gone than me."  
"None of us are crazy yet," Jorge added, walking over to stand next to her. "But it won't be long. Come on. We need to get over to the stash and put some food in you people. You all look like a bunch of starved zombies."

Minho didn't seem to like the idea. "You think I'm just gonna waltz over to have a sit-down with you psychos, then let you cut my freaking tongue off?"

"Wouldn't be a great loss." Miyoko grabbed his arm, dragging him to her side. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. In fact, knowing you we'll probably burn it."

That got a few snickers from the Gladers, Brenda gave Thomas and his friends an odd look, considering all of them. Thomas thought she might say something but she turned away.

Jorge and Brenda led the Gladers through the streets of the city, there weren't many Cranks around. They probably had the sense to stay out of the sun.

The hunger was incredible. Thomas hadn't felt anything like it since the Box and doubted he had before, he might have eaten a rat if it was skinned and cooked nicely.

Finally they entered an underground tunnel, reminiscent of the one they had entered the Scorch through, it was full of cans of food and Thomas felt his mouth water at the sight.

The food was handed out to the Gladers, who didn't even question the Spanish words they couldn't read, just prised open the cans and began to eat.

Cold beans and some type of sausage, somehow the best meal Thomas had ever had.

Brenda had come to sit next to them, Rachel having welcomed her. No one spoke, too focussed on the food. Thomas and his group had separated themselves from the others down the hall without even realising it.

"Taste good?" she asked as she dug into her own food.

"Please. I'd push my own mom down the stairs to eat this stuff. If I still have a mom." He couldn't help thinking of his dream and the brief glimpse he'd seen of her, but did his best to forget it―it was too depressing. The other three only gave vague affirmative noises.

"You get sick of it fast," Brenda said, pulling Thomas out of his head. He noticed the way she sat, her right knee pressed against his shin, and his thoughts jumped to the ridiculous idea that she'd moved her leg like that on purpose. "We only have about four or five options."  
Thomas concentrated on clearing his mind, bringing his thoughts back to the present. "Where'd you get the food? And how much is left?"

"Before this area got scorched by the flares, this city had several food manufacturing plants, plus a lot of warehouses to hold the food. Sometimes I think that's why WICKED sends Cranks here. They can at least tell themselves that we won't starve while we slowly go crazy and kill each other."

"Why does everything have to be so depressing?" Aris drank the juice left in his can and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Just not talk about death for ten minutes."

"Our lives are focussed around death, not much else to discuss." Rachel quipped and he glared at her.

"Why are we friends?" She hit him with her empty can, then threw it onto the floor.

"Are they always like that?" Brenda gestured to the bickering pair, Thomas knew it was all done with good humour but to a stranger it might not appear that way.

"Yep. And coming from Rachel violent threats - and actions - are a sign of affection, if she threatens to cut your throat or chucks a pebble at you it means she likes you." Teresa said, Thomas laughed, he had never heard a better description of his friend. Come to think of it, he was very lucky to have her as a friend rather than an enemy.

Thomas scooped out the last bit of sauce from the bottom of his can and licked his spoon clean. "If there's plenty, why do you only have a few options?" He had the thought that maybe they'd trusted her too quickly, that they could be eating poison. But she was eating the same food, so his worries were probably far-fetched.

Brenda pointed toward the ceiling with her thumb. "We've only scoured the closest ones. Some company that specialized, not much variety. I'd kill your mother for something fresh out of a garden. A nice salad."  
"Guess my mom doesn't have much of a chance if she's ever standing between us and a grocery store."  
"Guess not."

"Does the world still have grocery stores?" Thomas asked. "I mean, what's it like out there after all this Flare business? Really hot, with a bunch of crazy people running around?" Teresa was listening intently, Rachel and Aris seemed to have stopped tormenting each other to pay some sort of attention.

"No. Well, I don't know. The sun flares killed a lot of people before they could escape to the north or south. My family lived in northern Canada. My parents were some of the first ones to make it to the camps set up by the coalition between governments. The people who ended up forming WICKED later."  
Thomas stared for a second, his mouth wide open. She'd just revealed more to him about the state of the world in those few sentences than anything he'd heard since having his memory wiped.

"Wait ... wait a second," he said. "I need to hear all this. Can you start from the beginning?"  
Brenda shrugged. "Not much to tell―happened a long time ago. The sun flares were completely unexpected and unpredictable, and by the time the scientists tried to warn anyone, it was way too late. They wiped out half the planet, killed everything around the equatorial regions. Changed climates everywhere else. The survivors gathered, some governments combined. Wasn't too long before they discovered that a nasty virus had been unleashed from some disease-control place. Called it the Flare right from the beginning."

"I asked for you not to discuss death for ten minutes, not the moon on a silver platter." Aris looked back at them, Rachel rolled her eyes.  
She shushed him, holding a hand up. "Wait," she said. "Something's wrong. I think we have visitors."

Thomas hadn't heard anything, and the other Gladers didn't seem to notice, either. But Jorge was already at Brenda's side, whispering something in her ear. She was just moving to stand up when a crash exploded down the hall―from the stairs they'd used to reach the stash. It was a horribly loud sound, the crumple and cracking of a structure falling apart, cement breaking, metal ripping. A cloud of dust fogged its way toward them, choking off the scant light from the food room.

They were cut off from the others, Thomas realised when the dust cleared. He could see Aris and Rachel just on the other side of a huge lump of concrete, too big to get around. The stairs had been totally destroyed and it was a miracle no one had been crushed.

Brenda, Thomas and Teresa were stuck behind the obstruction, no way out but further underground. Rachel was shouting something that Thomas couldn't hear, everyone else running towards the staircase.

He turned, looked between the two girls. What did they do?

"Run." Brenda pointed down the tunnel behind them, turning and sprinting into the darkness.

Thomas new there was no choice, he met Teresa's eyes with a second before they both scrambled to their feet and followed her.


	11. Chapter 11

All Thomas and Teresa could do was follow Brenda deep into the tunnels, hoping she knew where she was going.

"Where are you leading us?" Teresa asked, looking behind her for a second, no one was following them.

"There's loads of ways out, we'll find one and meet back up with the rest. Better for everyone to split up anyway."

They ran until Brenda stopped in a dead end. The darkness was almost complete, and the only sound was heavy breathing that thankfully didn't smell.

"You hear anything?" she said through huffs.

Thomas listened, but all he heard was their own breathing. Everything else was silence and darkness. "No," he told her. "Where are we?"

"A bunch of tunnels and secret passages connect the buildings on this side of town, maybe across the whole city―we haven't explored that far yet. They call it the Underneath."

"The Underneath?" he repeated. "Sounds stupid."

"Well, I didn't name it."

"How much of it have you explored?" He didn't like the idea of running around down there without knowing what was ahead.

"Not much. We usually run into Cranks. The really bad ones. Way past Gone."

This made Thomas turn in a circle, searching the darkness for he didn't know what. His whole body tensed with fear as if he'd just jumped into ice water. "Well ... are we safe? What happened with that explosion, anyway? We need to go back and find my friends."

"What about Jorge?"

"Huh?"

"Shouldn't we go find Jorge, too?"

Thomas hadn't meant to offend her. "Yeah, Jorge, my friends, all those shanks. We can't leave them behind."

"It won't be too hard to find them Tom." Teresa smiled, tapped her head. The telepathy of course, they could talk to Aris and Rachel and meet up that way, he was an idiot for not realising that.

"What do you mean?" Brenda asked, Thomas wondered how she would react to the telepathy.

"No idea how it works, but those other two: Rachel and Aris, we can talk to them in our heads. Telepathically. We don't know where it came from but it's useful."

"Seriously." Brenda looked between them both and laughed. "Whatever, try it."

 _Rachel, Aris, where are you?_ Thomas called, he could feel the buzz that indicated the other three were somehow using the system.

 _Somewhere Jorge's leading us. Where are you?_ Rachel's reply was instantaneous.

 _Underground, figure out where you're heading, and we'll meet you there._

 _Sure thing._

"They're still figuring out a destination. When they get one they'll tell us so we can rendezvous." Thomas explained quickly. It was odd that Brenda didn't question that they were telepathic, just accepted it.

There was silence for a few moments.

"I want you to promise me something." Brenda was looking between both Thomas and Teresa again, Thomas was glad he couldn't see her face.  
"Um ... what?"  
"No matter what happens, even if we have to go alone, you'll take me all the way back. All the way to WICKED, to that cure you promised Jorge―he told me about it in the storage room. I can't stay here and slowly go insane. I can't do it. I'd rather die."

"Okay, we promise. Now what are we gonna do?" Teresa was obviously trying to sound reassuring but her apprehension about the whole situation was obvious.

"Me and Jorge are gonna help you get through the city and in return you're going to take us back to civilisation. He told me, but I'd guessed it before then."

"But what are we going to do right now?" Thomas cut Brenda off. They had to stay focussed, the cure and safe haven were a long time goal, the current goal was getting out of these tunnels and meeting back up with their friends.

"If you came up with that so quickly, don't you think some of your friends did, too?" Teresa voiced what Thomas had been wondering.  
"Exactly." Brenda smiled, somehow it was slightly disconcerting.  
"What do you mean exactly? Sounds like you figured something out."

She reached out and placed her hands on his chest. "I think that's what happened. At first I worried it was a group of longer-gone Cranks, but since no one chased us, I think Barkley and a couple of his buddies rigged an explosion at the Underneath entrance, tried to kill us. They know they can get plenty of food somewhere else, and there're other ways to get down here."

"So there're other ways to get out. Let's go find one." Thomas was eager to get out of this strange dark tunnel, and very glad Teresa was with him.

"We need to go back." He continued, "maybe we could get over that slab, meet up with the others pretty quick."

They made their way back to the store room and looked at the slab of the ceiling, even with clear heads there was obviously no way of getting around it. But there were no bodies, that was definitely a positive sign.

"We have to go through the Underneath," Brenda announced after a long moment; she'd probably been contemplating their options just like Thomas. "If the others went up top, then they'll be long gone by now. Plus, they'll pull any attention toward themselves and away from us."

"And if they're down here we'll find them, right?" Thomas asked. "These tunnels all come back together eventually, right?"  
"Right. Either way, I know Jorge will have them moving toward the other side of the city, toward the mountains. We just have to make it so we can meet up and keep going."

Thomas looked at Brenda, thinking. Maybe only pretending to think, because they really had no option than to stick with her. She was probably their best―maybe only―bet of accomplishing anything other than a quick and horrible death at the hands of long-gone Cranks. What else could they do?  
"Okay," he said. "Let's go."

Brenda found two backpacks of food, gave one to Thomas and kept the other for herself, retrieving a flashlight and shining it down the tunnel.

Thomas held onto Teresa's hand as they followed Brenda through the tunnels, they hadn't heard anything more from Aris and Rachel yet so had no idea where to go to find them.

They walked for hours through identical tunnels, Brenda seemed to know the way and neither of them questioned her.

They stopped for a meal after a while, the cold canned mix wasn't anywhere near as good a second time.

Then more walking, Thomas hated the tunnels, the damp, oppressive darkness.

Eventually they entered a large room with quite a few exits branching off to the left and right, more than he'd seen previously. It almost seemed like it could be a gathering place joined by tunnels from all the buildings.

"Halfway to the other side of the city." Brenda announced with a flourish. "Well, technically this is the centre."

A loud pop startled Thomas, like a glass bulb breaking.

Brenda immediately shone her light back in the direction from which they'd come, but the hallway disappeared in shadow, empty except for a few ugly streaks of water on the walls, black on gray.

"What was that?" Thomas whispered.  
"An old light busting, I guess." Her voice held no concern. She put her flashlight on the ground so it shone on the wall opposite them.

"Why would an old light just spontaneously break?" Teresa was staring around, as if expecting a crank or something worse to some leaping at them out of a tunnel. Thomas didn't want to think about how that was a definite possibility.  
"I don't know. A rat?"  
"I haven't seen any rats. Plus, how would a rat walk on the ceiling?"

She gazed at him, a look of total mocking on her face. "You're right. It must be a flying rat. We should get the hell out of here."  
A small, nervous laugh escaped before Thomas could stop it. "Hilarious."

Another pop, this time followed by the tinkle of glass sprinkling on the floor. It had definitely come from behind them―Thomas was sure of it this time. Someone had to be following them. And it couldn't be the Gladers―it sounded more like people trying to freak them out. Scare them.

They were gathering up their things, Brenda whispering which direction to head in next when Teresa tensed beside Thomas. At some point she had gained possession of the flashlight and was pointing it at an utter horror of a man.

He was like an apparition―there was something unreal about him. He leaned to the right, his left foot and leg jiggling slightly, like he had a nervous tic. His left arm also twitched, the hand clenching and unclenching. He wore a dark suit that had probably once been nice, though now it was filthy and tattered. Water or something more foul soaked both knees of the pants.

But Thomas took all that in quickly. Most of his attention was drawn to the man's head. Thomas couldn't help but stare, mesmerized. It looked like hair had been ripped from his scalp, leaving bloody scabs in its place. His face was pallid and wet, with scars and sores everywhere. One eye was gone, a gummy red mass where it should have been. He also had no nose, and Thomas could actually see traces of the nasal passages in his skull underneath the terribly mangled skin.

And his mouth. Lips drawn back in a snarl, gleaming white teeth exposed, clenched tightly together. His good eye glared, somehow vicious in the way it darted between the three of them.

Then the man said something in a wet and gurgly voice that made Thomas shiver. He spoke only a few words, but they were so absurd and out of place that it just made the whole thing that much more horrifying.

"Rose took my nose, I suppose."

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry this is short, it's late and I needed to post. Next chapter will be up by or on Friday.**


	12. Chapter 12

They all stood silently, watching the man. Thomas didn't dare to move, hoping Brenda or maybe Teresa had any ideas because he definitely did not.

The man took a lumbering step toward them, having to wave his one good arm to keep his balance on the one good leg.

"Rose took my nose, I suppose," he repeated; the bubble of phlegm in his throat made a disgusting crackle. "And it really blows."

"Get it?" the man said, his snarl trying to morph into a grin. He looked like an animal about to pounce on its prey. "It really blows. My nose. Taken by Rose. I suppose." He laughed then, a wet chortle that made Thomas worry he might never sleep in peace again.

"Yeah, I get it," Brenda said. "That's some funny stuff."

Thomas sensed movement and looked over at her. She had pulled a can from her bag, slyly, and now gripped it in her right hand. Before he could wonder whether it was a good idea and whether he should try to stop her, she pulled her arm back and tossed the can at the Crank. Thomas watched it fly, watched it crash into the man's face.

He let out a shriek that iced Thomas to the core.

And then others appeared. A group of two. Then three. Then four more. Men and women. All dragging themselves out of the darkness to stand behind the first Crank. All just as gone. Just as hideous, consumed fully by the Flare, raging mad and injured head to toe. And, Thomas noticed, all missing their nose.

"That didn't hurt so bad," the leading Crank said. "You have a pretty nose. I really want a nose again." He stopped snarling long enough to lick his lips, then went right back to it. His tongue was a gruesomely scarred purple thing, as if he chewed it when bored. "And so do my friends."

Brenda threw another can at the Cranks, they didn't wait to see if it hit one, just took off down the nearest tunnel. Which wasn't the one Brenda had pointed out, meaning they were likely going to end up lost if they could get away from these Cranks.

Brenda seemed to know where she was going, and as it had been for the rest of their time in the Underneath, Thomas and Teresa had no choice but to follow her.

"Turn the light off. And follow me." Brenda hissed, turning into a small room, Teresa did, pushing the door shut behind her.

Brenda took Thomas's hand and Thomas took Teresa's, moving as a human chain in the pitch black.

"There's a crawl-space under a table here, I found it while exploring once, we should just be able to fit."

Thomas refused to consider their options if they wouldn't.

Teresa turned the light on for a second, the Cranks wouldn't see it from the doorway.

Brenda crawled into a crevice that looked too small even for her but was actually quite long and wide enough for them to lie sideways. She positioned herself to have her back against the far wall facing them, she motioned for them to hurry.

"You go next." Thomas told Teresa, giving her a push forward.

"Okay, hold the light." She passed him the flashlight and followed Brenda's lead.

The space looked incredibly cramped now, but Thomas thought he could squeeze into it. He put the flashlight between his teeth and crawled in.

"This is comfortable." Teresa quipped as Thomas managed to turn off the light, their chests were pressed together.

"Just like in the Glade. With Rachel and Aris." It was strange to look back on being trapped in the Homestead, surrounded by Grievers as a better time. Then something occurred to him.

"We never heard back from them, did we?" It had been long enough that they should have contacted Thomas or Teresa about a rendezvous. The telepathy had not been cut off entirely, Thomas could reach Teresa and vice versa.

But he couldn't reach Aris and Rachel, he realised with a jolt, it was like in the dormitory, when he could not reach Rachel or Teresa. They had either been cut off from each other by WICKED, which Thomas considered more likely, or were out of range. Whichever it was, they had no way of contacting their friends and knowing where to find them.

 _I can't get anything to them, can you?_ Teresa was asking, slightly frantic.

 _No, I think they cut us off again._ Thomas repeatedly tried to breach what was almost a mental brick wall separating them. He could sense a buzz that was Teresa doing the same.

After a few tries they both gave up, they would have to get through this entirely blind and unguided.

The silence was so deep Thomas almost thought he could hear his heart beating, but before long Crank noises began to appear: coughing, random shouts, lunatic giggles. They came closer by the second, and Thomas felt a moment of panic, worried that they'd been stupid to trap themselves like this. But then he thought about it. The odds of the Cranks finding the hidden cubby-hole were slim, especially in the darkness. They'd move on, hopefully going far away. Maybe even forgetting about them altogether. That was better than a prolonged chase.

The door to the room opened, one, two, three Cranks entering, laughing and muttering. Thomas forced himself not to hold his breath, to stay still. Maybe, just maybe, they would leave without noticing them.

"Little booooooy," the voice belonged to the man they had seen before. "Little girrrrrrrrls. Come out come out make a sound make a sound. I want your noses."

"Nothin' in here," a woman spat. "Nothin' but an old table."  
The creak of wood scraping against the floor sliced through the air, then ended abruptly.  
"Maybe they're hiding their noses under it," the man responded. "Maybe they're still attached to their sweet little pretty faces."  
Thomas shrank back against Teresa when he heard a hand or shoe scruff along the floor just outside the entrance to their little hiding place. Just a foot or two away.

"Nothin' down there!" the woman said again.  
Thomas heard her move away. He realized that his whole body had tensed into a pack of taut wires; he forced himself to relax, still careful to control his breathing.

More shuffling of feet. Then a haunting set of whispers, as if the trio had met in the middle of the room to strategize. Were their minds still sound enough to do such a thing? Thomas wondered. He strained to hear, to catch any words, but the harsh puffs of speech remained indecipherable.

"No!" one of them shouted. A man, but Thomas couldn't tell if it was the man. "No! No no no no no no no no." The words quieted into a murmured stutter.

The woman cut him off with her own chant. "Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes."  
"Shut up!" the leader said. Definitely the leader. "Shut up shut up shut up!"

Thomas felt cold inside, though sweat was beading on his skin. He didn't know if this exchange had any meaning whatsoever or was just more evidence of madness.  
"I'm leaving," the woman said, her words broken by a sob. She sounded like a child left out of a game.

"Me too, me too." This from the other man.  
"Shut up shut up shut up shut up!" the leader yelled, this time much louder. "Go away go away go away!"  
The sudden repetition of words creeped Thomas out. Like some control over language had snapped in their brains.

Shuffles of feet and swishing of clothes outside. Were they leaving?  
The sounds decreased sharply in volume when they entered the hallway, tunnel, whatever. The other Cranks in their party seemed to have left already. Soon it became silent all over again. Thomas only heard the faint sounds of their breathing.

They waited in the darkness, lying flat on the hard ground, facing the small doorway, pressed together, sweating. The silence stretched out, turned back into the buzz of absent sound. Thomas kept listening, knowing they had to be absolutely sure. As much as he wanted to leave that little compartment, as uncomfortable as it was, they had to wait.

Several minutes passed. Several more. Nothing but silence and darkness.  
"I think they're gone," Brenda finally whispered. Teresa flicked the flashlight on.  
"Hello, noses!" a hideous voice yelled from the room.  
Then a bloody hand reached through the doorway and grabbed Thomas by the shirt.

Thomas shrieked, swatting at the hand, but the man was terrifyingly strong. Teresa was pulling him back.

"One of you take my knife." That was Brenda, trapped behind Teresa so almost unable to help.

Suddenly it was in Teresa's hand, she was slashing at the gruesome arm, making deep cuts.

Thomas tried to get out the way of the blade, but it still nicked his neck.

Then she managed to stick the knife into the man's arm, he screamed and pulled back.

"Get out there, we need to get rid of him!" Brenda shouted, despite it meaning he got much closer to the man, Thomas was happy to oblige. He eased himself out of the crawl-space, both girls following him.

The Crank was against a wall, clutching his injured arm and wailing. Brenda walked calmly towards him and pulled the knife out of his flesh. At that he dropped like he'd been shot, curled into the foetal position, whimpering like a child.

Brenda held her flashlight in one hand, the knife in the other, its point aimed at the Crank. "Should've gone with your psycho friends, old man. Should've known better than to mess with us."

Instead of responding, the man suddenly spun on his shoulder, kicking his good leg out with shocking speed and strength. He hit Brenda first, sent her crashing into Thomas, and they both crumpled to the floor. Thomas heard the knife and flashlight clatter across the cement. Shadows danced on the walls.

Teresa was still standing, running to grab their only weapon as Thomas and Brenda got to their feet.

She beat the Crank to it, pointing at him threateningly. The man stared at her, began to laugh.

Brenda ran over, grabbed the man's arms, he started to kick at her and scream.

But he didn't get far before Teresa stabbed him in the heart.

Thomas could only stare, it had lasted seconds. Life bled out of the Crank slowly, the madness in his eyes dimming until it had faded entirely.

Teresa helped Brenda up and Thomas moved to join them. He doubted he would have been able to do that, kill a man, but it had seemed so easy for them.

"Can we please get out of here?" He tried to hide the fear and horror in his voice but failed.

"Sure." Brenda was already heading for the door and Thomas followed. Teresa was beside him, face and hair streaked with grime and blood, he doubted he was much better.

"Don't we have a story to tell the others." Thomas smiled at that, thinking of how everyone, especially Rachel and Aris, would react.

Brenda led them to a long iron ladder up to the sky, finally, away out of these awful tunnels. Thomas went first, desperate for daylight, no matter how hot and burning.

There were no people on the street they ascended to, at least no living ones.

"Mountains should be that way." Brenda pointed north, Thomas couldn't see anything through the haze of sunlight. He and Teresa still followed her, she hadn't been wrong yet.

Thomas was wishing he would hear from Aris and Rachel, it was surprising how much he missed them, knowing they were utterly out of his reach and had never been before for more than a few minutes.

They traveled until dark, avoiding contact with anyone. They did hear the occasional scream in the distance, or the sounds of things crashing inside a building now and then. Once, Thomas saw a group of people scurry across a street several blocks away, but they seemed not to notice him, Teresa or Brenda.

Just before the sun disappeared completely for the day, they turned a corner and came into full view of the city's edge, maybe another mile farther. The buildings ended abruptly, and behind them the mountains rose in all their majesty. They were several times bigger than Thomas would've guessed upon first glimpsing them a few days earlier, and were dry and rocky.

"Should we go the rest of the way?" Thomas asked.  
Brenda was busy looking for a place to hide. "Tempting, but no. First off, it's too dangerous running around here at night. Second, even if we made it, there'd be no place for cover out there unless we made it all the way to the mountains. Which I don't think we could do."

As much as Thomas dreaded spending another night in this wretched city, he agreed. But the frustration and worry over the other Gladers were eating away at his insides.

"Okay. Where should we go, then?" Teresa asked, picking a clot of blood out of her hair. "I need to sleep." Thomas could certainly agree with that.  
"Follow me."

They ended up in a truck in a dead end alley. Brenda sat shotgun while Thomas shared the driver's seat with Teresa.

"I can't believe we killed someone." Teresa whispered in the dark, Thomas reached out to squeeze her hand.

"We had to do it, or they'd have killed us. The first time's the hardest." Brenda sighed, Thomas wished he could have come up with something like that. He wondered when he would have to kill someone.

"At least none of us are alone." He finally said, there was no way he would have survived without them, and he wanted them to know that.

"Yeah, that'd be awful." Teresa agreed, they were all silent for a few moments.

"They killed my dad." Brenda spoke up.  
Thomas lifted his head, surprised by the sudden shift in conversation. "What?"  
Brenda nodded slowly. "WICKED. He tried to stop them from taking me, screamed like a lunatic as he attacked them with ... I think it was a wooden rolling pin." She let out a small laugh. "Then they shot him in the head." Tears glistened in her eyes, sparkling in the faint light.

"You're serious?"  
"Yeah. I saw it happen. Saw the life go out of him before he even hit the floor."  
"Oh, man." Thomas searched for words. "I'm really ... sorry. I saw maybe my best friend in the world get stabbed. He died right in my arms." He paused again. "What about your mom?"  
"She hadn't been around for a long time." She didn't elaborate, and Thomas didn't push. Didn't really want to know.

"I'm so scared of going crazy," she said after a long minute of silence. "I can already feel it happening. Things look weird, sound weird. Out of the blue I'll start thinking about stuff that doesn't make any sense. Sometimes the air around me feels ... hard. I don't even know what that means, but it's scary. I'm definitely starting. The Flare's taking my brain to hell."

Thomas couldn't handle the look in her eyes; he let his gaze drop to the floor. "Don't give up yet. We'll make it to the safe haven, get the cure."  
"False hope," she said. "Guess that's better than no hope at all."

"Whatever keeps us going." Teresa added, she shifted to lie back, putting her head on Thomas's shoulder.

He was reminded of the bus ride, that had been false hope.

No one broke the silence now, instead, somehow, they slept.


	13. Chapter 13

_Thomas is fourteen, but entirely unaware of how he knows this. He's sat on a small, narrow bed in a plain white impersonal bedroom._

 _Teresa, Rachel and Aris are with him, all sat cross-legged, all looking haunted by something, all silent._

 _"I can't believe we did that, that we did that to them." Teresa's voice is shaky._

 _"We're going to have to do that every month, for the next two years, until it's our turn. I don't think I can." Aris continues, staring at his hands._

 _"But there's no choice is there. The Maze Trials have begun." The younger Thomas says, his voice grim. "Let's hope to God it's worth it."_

 _They all look at each other and nod, Rachel is crying._

Thomas woke up, wondering what exactly was the point of his dream. Teresa was asleep still, breathing evenly. He couldn't see Brenda to tell if she was asleep or awake.

But then she spoke.

"Bad dream?"  
Thomas settled himself, closed his eyes. "Not really, just weird." He doesn't want to tell her about his memories, they're for him, Teresa, Rachel and Aris. Just like the telepathy. He had Teresa but hated being separated from his other friends.

"I just, it's awful worrying about everyone else. Know what I mean?" He thinks about Jorge and reckons she must.

"I'm sorry that happened. I really am." She shifted in her seat. "But I seriously don't think you need to worry. Your Glader buddies seemed capable enough, but even if they weren't―Jorge is one tough monkey. He'll get them through the city just fine. Don't waste the stress on your heart. We're the ones you should be worried about."

"You're doing a terrible job of making me feel better."  
Brenda laughed. "Sorry―I was smiling when I said that last part, but you couldn't see me, I guess."

Teresa stirred, for a moment Thomas thought she would wake but she didn't move again.  
Thomas looked at his backlit watch, then said, "We still have a few hours before the sun comes up."

After a short silence, Thomas spoke again. "Tell me a little bit more about what life's like now. They took most of our memories―some of mine came back, but they're sketchy and I don't know if I can trust them. There isn't much there about the outside world, either."

Brenda sighed deeply. "The outside world, huh? Well, it sucks. The temperatures are finally starting to go down, but it'll be forever before the sea levels do the same. It's been a long time since the flares, but so many people died, Thomas. So many. It's actually kind of amazing how everyone who survived stabilized and civilized so quickly. If it weren't for the stupid Flare, I think the world would pull through in the long run. But if wishes were fishes ... oh, I can't remember. Something my dad used to say."

Thomas could hardly contain the curiosity that now raced inside him. "What did happen? Are there new countries, or just one big government? And how does WICKED fit into it all? Are they the government?"

"There are still countries, but they're more ... unified. Once the Flare started spreading like crazy, they combined all their forces, technology, resources, whatever to start up WICKED. They set up this crazy elaborate testing system and have tried really hard to have quarantined areas. They slowed the Flare down, but they can't stop it. I think the only hope is to find a cure. Hope you're right that they've done it―but if they have, they sure haven't shared it with the public yet."

"So where are we?" Thomas asked. "Where are we right now?"  
"In a truck." When Thomas didn't laugh, she continued. "Sorry, bad time for jokes. Judging by the labels on the food, we think we're in Mexico. Or what used to be Mexico. It makes the most sense. Now it's called the Scorch. Basically any area between the two Tropics―Cancer and Capricorn―is a complete wasteland now. Central and South America, most of Africa, the Middle East and southern Asia. Lots of dead lands, lots of dead people. So, welcome to the Scorch. Isn't it nice of them to send us sweet Cranks down here?"

"Man." Thoughts raced through Thomas's mind, mostly related to how he knew he was a part of WICKED―a huge part―and how the Maze and Groups A and B and all the junk they were going through were parts of it too. But he couldn't remember enough for it to make any sense.

"Man?" Brenda asked. "That's the best you can come up with?"  
"I have too many questions―I can't seem to latch on to just one to ask."  
"Do you know about the numbing agent?"  
Thomas looked over at her, wished he could make out more of her face. "I think Jorge said something about that. What is it?"

"You know how the world is. New disease, new drugs. Even if it doesn't do jack to the illness itself, they still come up with stuff."  
"What does it do? Do you have any?"  
"Ha!" Brenda shouted it with contempt. "You think they'd give us any? Only the important people, the rich people can get their hands on that junk. They call it the Bliss. Numbs your emotions, numbs your brain processes, slows you down to a drunken stupor so you don't feel much. Keeps the Flare at bay because the virus thrives in your brain. Eats at it, destroys it. If there's not a lot of activity, the virus weakens."

Thomas folded his arms. There was something very important here, but he couldn't put his finger on it. "So ... it's not a cure? Even though it slows the virus down?"  
"Not even close. Just delays the inevitable. The Flare always wins in the end. You lose any chance of being rational, having common sense, having compassion. You lose your humanity."

Thomas was quiet. Maybe more strongly than ever before, he felt that a memory―an important one―was trying to squeeze its way through the cracks in the wall blocking him from his past. The Flare. The brain. Going mad. The numbing agent, the Bliss. WICKED. The trials. What Rat Man had said, that their responses to the Variables were what this was all about.

"Did you fall asleep?" Brenda asked him after several minutes of silence.  
"No. Just too much information." He felt dimly alarmed at what she had said, but he still couldn't put anything together. "It's hard to process it all."  
"Well, I'll shut up, then." She turned away, rested her head against the door. "Push it out of your mind. Won't do you any good. You need rest."

"Uh-huh," Thomas mumbled, frustrated at having so many clues but no real answers. But Brenda was right―he could definitely use a good night's sleep. He got comfortable and did his best, but it took a long time before he finally dozed off. And dreamed.

 _He's still fourteen. The younger Aris and Rachel are nowhere to be seen. He and Teresa are kneeling on the ground, their ears pressed to the crack of a door, listening. Eavesdropping. A man and a woman are talking inside, and Thomas can hear them well enough._

 _The man first. "Did you get the additions to the Variables list?"_  
 _"Last night," the woman responds. "I like what Trent added for the end of the Maze Trials. Brutal, but we need it to happen. Should create some interesting patterns. But, I'm not sure about what they have planned for that girl. She's one of the best."_

 _The woman makes a noise that must be a laugh but that sounds strained and humorless. "Yeah, I had the same thought. I mean, good Lord, how much can these kids take before they'll go crazy on their own?"_

 _"Not just that, it's risky. What if he dies? We all agree that by then he'll surely be one of the top Candidates."_  
 _"He won't. We won't let him."_  
 _"Still. We're not God. He could die."_

 _There's a long pause. Then the man says, "Maybe it won't come to that. But I doubt it. The Psychs say it will stimulate a lot of the patterns we need."_  
 _"Well, there's a lot of emotion involved with something like that," the woman answers. "And according to Trent, some of the hardest patterns to create. I think the plan for those Variables is just about the only thing that will work."_

 _"You really think the Trials are going to work?" the man asks. "Seriously, the scale and logistics of this thing are unbelievable. Think of how much could go wrong!"_  
 _"Could, you're right. But what's the alternative? Try it, and if it fails, we'll just be in the same spot as if we'd tried nothing."_  
 _"I guess."_

 _Teresa tugs on Thomas's shirt; he looks to see her pointing back down the hall. Time to go. He nods, but leans back in to see if he can catch one last phrase or two. He does. It's the woman._  
 _"Too bad we'll never see the end of the Trials."_  
 _"I know," the man answers. "But the future will thank us."_

The first thing Thomas noticed was the light of dawn, two memory dreams and his midnight talk with Brenda filling his thoughts. Teresa is already awake, opening a can for breakfast with Brenda's knife.

"Good to see you up sleepyhead." She passes him the can and opens another for herself, then pockets the knife, Brenda is still sleeping.

The dreams were already fading, but the gist of them remained. They had really started the trials, the four of them, when they had been younger. But they hadn't known everything, that gave Thomas hope that they hadn't been entirely on WICKED's side.

They eat their breakfast of cold beans in silence.

"What's that?" Something glinting in the sun caught Thomas's eye.

"No idea." Teresa followed his gaze. A large metal plaque, riveted to the wall. A sign that looked very familiar.

He pushed the door open and stumbled out onto the street and over to it, dimly aware that Teresa was following him. It was nearly identical to the sign in the Maze that had said WORLD IN CATASTROPHE―KILLZONE EXPERIMENT DEPARTMENT. Same dull metal, same lettering. Except this one said something very different:

THOMAS, YOU'RE THE REAL LEADER.

He might have stared at it all day if Teresa hadn't started talking to him, snapping him out of his reverie.

"What does that mean?"

Brenda came towards them yawning, she must have woken up.

"I was waiting for the right time to tell you. They're all over the city." She gestured to the plaque. "And they all say that, exactly."

Thomas couldn't really believe his eyes, WICKED must have put the plaques up for them to see, but they had designated Minho as the leader. It made no sense. He felt a weakening in his knees and Teresa moved to support him.

"How ... how is this even possible? I mean, it looks like it's been there for a while. ..." He didn't really know what else to say.

"Don't know," Brenda answered. "None of us knew what it meant. But when you guys showed up and you told us your name ... well, we figured it wasn't a coincidence."

Thomas gave her a hard stare, anger fighting its way up inside him. "Why didn't you tell me about this? You'll tell me about your dad being killed, but not this?"

"I didn't tell you because I was worried about how you'd react. I figured you'd probably run off looking for the signs, forget all about me."  
Thomas sighed. He was sick of all of it. He let the anger go and blew out a long breath. "I guess it's just another part of this whole nightmare that makes no sense."

Brenda twisted to look up at the sign. "How could you not know what it means? Could it be any simpler? You're supposed to be the leader, take over. I'll help you, earn my way in. Earn a spot at the safe haven."  
Thomas laughed. "Here I am in a city full of whacked-in-the-brain Cranks, and I'm supposed to worry about who the real leader of my group is? It's ridiculous."

"Let's not worry about it until we find the others." Teresa looked between them both. She was right, that had to be their priority.

Suddenly, an odd thumping sound began nearby.

"Do you hear that?" he asked, now fully at attention.  
Brenda had stilled, head cocked to the side as she listened intently. "Yeah. Sounds like someone bangin' on a drum."

"I guess the fun and games are over. What do you think it is?"  
"Chances are it's not good." Teresa sighed.  
"But what if it's our friends?"

The low bump-bump-bump suddenly seemed to come from everywhere at once, the echoes bouncing back and forth between the alley walls. But after a long few seconds, Thomas grew certain the sound was coming from a corner of the dead end. Despite the risk, he ran in that direction to get a look.

He heard both Brenda and Teresa groan and follow him.  
At the very end of the alley, Thomas reached a wall of cracked and faded bricks, where four stairs led down to a scratched and worn wooden door. Just above the door, there was a tiny rectangle of a window, its glass missing. One broken shard still hung at the top, like a jagged tooth.

Thomas could hear music playing, much louder now. It was intense and fast, the bass powerful, drums banging and guitars screaming. Mixed in were the sounds of people laughing and shouting and singing along. And none of it sounded very ... sane. There was something creepy and disturbing about it.

It looked like the Cranks didn't just look for people's noses to bite off, and it gave Thomas a very bad feeling―this noise had nothing to do with his friends.  
"We better get out of here," Thomas said.  
"Ya think?" Brenda responded, standing right at his shoulder.

"Come on." Teresa urged, Thomas turned to go just as she did, but they all froze. Three people had appeared in the alley while they'd been distracted. Two men and one woman, now standing only a few feet away.

Thomas's stomach dropped as he quickly observed the new arrivals. Their clothes were tattered, their hair messy, their faces dirty. But when he looked closer he saw that they didn't have any noticeable injuries, and their eyes showed glints of intelligence. Cranks, but not full-gone Cranks.

"Hi there," the woman said. She had long red hair pulled into a ponytail. Her shirt was cut so low that Thomas had to force himself to keep his eyes focused on hers. "Come to join our party? Lots of dancing. Lots of lovin'. Lots of booze."

There was an edge to her voice that made Thomas nervous. He didn't know what it meant, but this lady wasn't being nice. She was mocking them.  
"Um, no thanks," Thomas said. "We, uh, we were just―"  
Brenda cut in. "Just trying to find our friends. We're new here, just getting settled."

"Welcome to WICKED's very own Crankland." This was one of the men, a tall, ugly guy with greasy hair. "Don't worry, most of 'em down there"―he nodded toward the stairs―"are half gone at worst. You might get an elbow in the face, maybe kicked in the 'nads. But no one's gonna try to eat you."

"'Nads?" Brenda repeated. "Excuse me?"  
The man pointed at Thomas. "I was talkin' to the boy. Things might get a little worse for you if you don't stick close to us. You two being female and all." Thomas really didn't like how they were looking at Teresa and Brenda. The three of them moved closer together and Teresa reached for his hand.  
This whole conversation was making him ill. "Sounds like fun. But we gotta go. Find our friends. Maybe we'll come back."

The other man stepped forward. This one was short but handsome, with blond hair in a crew cut. "You three are nothin' but kids. Time you got some lessons on life. Time you had some fun. We're officially inviting you to the party." He pronounced each word of the last sentence carefully, and with no kindness whatsoever.

"Thanks, but no thanks," Teresa said.  
Blondie pulled a gun from a pocket of his long jacket. It was a pistol, silver but grimy and dull. Still, it looked as menacing and deadly as anything Thomas had ever seen.  
"I don't think you understood me," the man said. "You're invited to our party. That's not something you turn down."

Tall and Ugly pulled out a knife. Ponytail pulled out a screwdriver, its tip black with what had to be old blood.  
"What do you say?" Blondie asked. "Would you like to come to our party?"  
Thomas looked at Brenda, but she didn't look back. Her eyes were glued to the blond man, and her face said she was about to do something really stupid.  
"Don't." Teresa whispered tightly.

"Okay," Thomas said quickly. "We'll go. Let's do it."  
Brenda snapped her head around. "What?"  
"He has a gun. He has a knife. She's got a shuck screwdriver! I'm not in the mood to have an eyeball smashed into my skull." Thomas pointed out the weapons to her, hoping that would make her not do whatever she was planning.

"Looks like your boyfriend's not stupid," Blondie said. "Now let's go have some fun." He pointed his pistol at the stairs and smiled. "Feel free to lead the way."  
Brenda was clearly angry, but her eyes also revealed that she knew they had no other choice. "Fine."

Blondie smiled again; the expression would've looked natural on a snake. "That's the spirit. Fine and dandy, nothing to worry about."  
"No one's gonna hurt you," Tall and Ugly added. "Unless you get difficult. Unless you act like brats. By the end of the party, you'll wanna join our group. Trust me on that."

Thomas had to fight to keep the panic from pounding through him. "Let's just go," he said to Blondie.  
"Waiting on you." The man pointed at the stairs with his gun again.  
Thomas reached out and grabbed Brenda's hand, pulled her close to him, still keeping hold of Teresa and not caring what it looked like. "Let's go to the party, sweetheart." He put as much sarcasm into it as he could. "This'll be so much fun!"

"That's very nice," Ponytail said. "I get weepy when I see people in love." She feigned wiping tears from her cheeks.  
They walked down the stairs towards the door, still linked together, but the door had no handle. Thomas turned to the strange Cranks.

"Gotta do the special knock," the man said. "Three slow fist thumps, three fast ones, then two knuckle taps."  
Thomas hated these people. He hated the way they spoke so calmly and said mostly nice words, all of them full of mockery. In a way these Cranks were worse than the nose-missing guy he'd stabbed the day before―at least with him they'd known exactly what they were dealing with.

"Do it," Brenda whispered.  
Thomas balled his hand into a fist and did the slow fist thumps, then the fast ones. Then he rapped the wood twice with his knuckles. The door opened immediately, the pounding music escaping like a blasting wind.

The guy who greeted them was huge, ears and face pierced several times, tattoos all over. His hair was long and white, reaching well past his shoulders. But Thomas barely had time to register this before the man spoke.  
"Hey, Thomas. We've been waiting for you."


	14. Chapter 14

Before any of them could respond the three of them were pulled inside, at the same time pushed from behind. Thomas really wanted to know how these people knew his same and really wanted to get out of here.

 _Rachel, Aris, we need help now!_ He tried to contact them, but the connection was still off.

They were ushered through a tightly packed crowd of dancing bodies, gyrating and jumping and hugging and spinning. The music was deafening, each beat of the drums like a hammer to Thomas's skull. Several flashlights had been strung from the ceiling; they swayed back and forth as people swatted them, sending beams of light slashing this way and that.

Long Hair leaned over and spoke to Thomas as they slowly made their way through the dancers; Thomas could barely hear him even though he was yelling.  
"Thank God for batteries! Life's gonna suck when those run out!"  
"How did you know my name?" Thomas yelled back. "Why were you waiting for me?"

The man laughed. "We watched you all night! Then this morning we saw your reaction to the sign through a window―figured you had to be the famous Thomas!"

Somewhere right in the middle, Long Hair stopped and turned to face them, his odd white mane flopping.  
"We really want you to join us!" he shouted. "There's gotta be something about you! We'll protect you from the bad Cranks!"

Thomas was glad they didn't know more. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. Play along, pretend to be a special Crank, and maybe they would get through this long enough to slip away unnoticed at the right time.  
"I'll go and get you a drink!" Long Hair called out. "Enjoy yourselves!" Then he scuttled off, vanishing into the thick, writhing crowd.

"I'm not drinking anything they've got." Teresa hissed, Thomas didn't think they'd have a choice.

 _Can you get through to the others?_ He begged that she could, send out some sort of distress signal.

Brenda had moved away slightly, scanning the room for an escape route, which didn't seem very plausible. Thomas kept hold of Teresa.

 _No, still nothing._

It was expected, but still disappointing.

"Hey," Brenda came closer to them again. "Can't see a way out, maybe we should stay here for a while."

"No." Teresa spoke with a definite finality. "We'll get out, get to the Safe Haven, get the cure."

"You really think there's a cure if they're sending all these Cranks out here?"

Brenda had a point, but Thomas didn't want to think about it..

"You're talking crazy," he said, then paused. He had his own doubts, of course, but he didn't want to discourage her. "The cure is real. We have to ..." He trailed off, looked over at Blondie, who was still staring at him. The guy probably couldn't hear, but better safe than sorry. Thomas leaned over to speak directly in Brenda's ear. "We have to get out of here. You wanna stay with people who pull guns and screwdrivers on you?"

Before she could respond, Long Hair was back, somehow carrying three cups with two hands, the brownish liquid inside sloshing as he got bumped from all directions by the dancers. "Drink up!" he called out.

Something inside Thomas seemed to wake up then. Taking a drink from these strangers was a very, very bad idea. Like Teresa had said. Impossibly, everything about this place and this situation had become even more uncomfortable.  
Brenda had already started reaching for a drink, though. Teresa had taken a step backwards.

"No!" Thomas yelled before he could stop himself, then raced to cover his mistake. "I mean, no, I really don't think we should be drinking that stuff. We've gone a long time without water―we need that first. We, um, just wanna dance for a while." He tried to act casual, but was cringing on the inside, knowing he sounded like an idiot―especially when Brenda gave him a strange look.

Something small and hard pressed against his side. He didn't have to turn to see what it was: Blondie's pistol.

"I offered you a drink," Long Hair said again, this time any sign of kindness gone from his tattooed face. "It would be very rude to turn such an offer down." He held the cups out again.  
Panic swelled in Thomas. Any small doubt had gone―something was wrong with the drinks.  
Blondie pressed the gun into him even harder. "I'm gonna count to one," the man said into his ear. "Just one."

Thomas didn't have to think. He reached out and took the cup, poured the liquid in his mouth, swallowed all of it at once. It burned like fire, searing his throat and chest as it went down; he broke into a lurching, wracking cough. Next to him Teresa was doing the same.  
"Now you," Long Hair said, handing the final cup to Brenda.

She looked at Thomas, then took it and drank. It didn't seem to faze her in the least; there was just a slight tightening of her eyes as it went down.  
Long Hair took the empty cups back, a huge grin now spread across his face. "That's just fine! Back to dancing ya go!"

Thomas already felt something funny in his gut. A soothing warmth, a calmness, growing and spreading through his body. He took Teresa back into his arms, held her tightly as they swayed to the music. Her mouth was against his neck. Every time her lips bumped against his skin, a wave of pleasure shot through him.

"What was it?" he asked. He felt more than heard the slur in his voice.  
"Something not good," she said; he could barely hear her. "Something drugged. It's doing funny things to me."

Yeah. Thomas thought. Something funny. The room had begun to spin around him, far faster than their slow turn should have caused it to. People's faces seemed to stretch when they laughed, their mouths gaping black holes. The music slowed and thickened, the singing voice deepened, grew drawn-out.

Everything was fading into darkness, there was a thump nearby, Thomas was vaguely aware that Brenda had collapsed, but not enough to do anything about it. The only real thing was Teresa, likely because she was so close to him. She looked impossibly beautiful, despite being bedraggled and dirty from days in the desert.

He wanted to kiss her, so he did. Their lips touching, something exploded within his chest, burning away the tension and confusion and fear. For a moment it felt like nothing mattered anymore. Like nothing would matter ever again.

Then she fell away, and his mind did the same.

* * *

Thomas awoke to darkness, feeling like a thousand nails were being hammered into his skull. What on Earth had been in those drinks?

He was tied up, he realised when he found that he couldn't move his arms or legs, something sticky held them down. Tape. A lot of which had been used on his wrists.

"Teresa? Brenda?" Thomas whispered into the silence. No response.

A light came on.  
Bright and stabbing. He squeezed both eyes shut, then opened one just enough to squint through. Three people stood in front of him, but their faces were in shadow, the light source coming from behind.

"Wakey wakey," a husky voice said. Someone snickered.  
"Want some more of that fire juice?" This came from a woman. The same person snickered again.

Thomas finally grew accustomed to the light and opened his eyes fully. He was in a wooden chair, wide gray tape tightly securing his wrists to the armrests and his ankles to the chair legs. Two men and one woman stood in front of him. Blondie. Tall and Ugly. Ponytail. Teresa was bound only a foot or so away, if his wrists were free he could have touched her, she looked over to him.

 _I really hope the telepathy turns back on soon._ She said into his mind, apparently they still couldn't reach Rachel and Aris.

"Why didn't you just whack me out in the alley?" Thomas asked the three Cranks in front of him.  
"Whack you?" Blondie responded. His voice hadn't seemed husky before; it sounded like he'd spent the last few hours yelling out on the dance floor. "What do you think we are, some kind of twentieth-century mafia clan? If we wanted to whack you, you'd already be dead, bleeding in the streets."

"We don't want you dead," Ponytail interrupted. "That would spoil the meat. We like to eat our victims while they're still breathing. Eat as much as we can before they bleed to death. You wouldn't believe how juicy and ... sweet that tastes."  
Tall and Ugly laughed, but Thomas couldn't tell whether Ponytail was serious. Either way, it freaked him out.

"She's kidding," Blondie said. "We've only eaten other humans when it's gotten completely desperate. Man meat tastes like pig crap."  
Another burst of giggles from Tall and Ugly. Not snickering, not laughing. Giggling. Thomas didn't believe they were serious―he was much more worried about how their minds seemed ... off.

Blondie smiled for the first time since Thomas had met him. "Joking again. We're not quite that Cranked-out yet. But I do bet people don't taste very good."  
Tall and Ugly and Ponytail nodded.

Man, these guys are really starting to lose it. Thomas thought. He heard a muffled groan to his left and looked over. Brenda was in a corner of the room, bound just like him and Teresa. But her mouth had been taped shut as well, making him wonder if she'd put up more of a fight. It looked like she was only now waking up, and when she noticed the three Cranks, she shifted and wiggled in her chair, moaning through the gag. Her eyes lit with fire.

Blondie pointed at her. His pistol had magically appeared. "Shut up! Shut up or I'll splat your brain on the wall!"  
Brenda stopped. Thomas expected her to start whimpering or crying or something. But she didn't, and he immediately felt stupid for thinking it. She'd already shown how tough she was.

Blondie dropped the gun to his side. "Better. Good God, we should've killed her when she first started screaming up there. And biting." He looked at his forearm, where the long arc of a welt shone red.

"She's with him," Ponytail said. "We can't kill her yet."  
Blondie pulled a chair from the far wall and took a seat just a few feet in front of Thomas. The others followed suit, looking relieved, as if they'd been waiting hours for permission. Blondie rested the gun on his thigh, its business end pointed straight at Thomas.

"Okay," the man said. "We've got us quite a lot to talk about. I'm not going through the normal bullcrap with you, either. If you mess around or refuse to answer or whatever, I'm gonna shoot you in the leg. Then the other one. Third time, a bullet goes into her face." He gestured over to Brenda. "I'm thinking somewhere right between the eyes. The fourth time it'll be her." He waved his hand at Teresa. "And I bet you can guess what happens the fifth time you piss me off."

Thomas nodded. He wanted to think he was tough, think he could stand up to these Cranks. But common sense won out. He was taped to a chair, no weapons, no allies, nothing. Though honestly, he didn't have anything to hide. He'd answer whatever the guy asked him. Whatever ended up happening, he didn't want any bullets in his leg. And he doubted the guy was bluffing.

"First question," Blondie said. "Who are you and why is your name on signs all over this piece of crap city?"

"My name is Thomas." As soon as it came out, Blondie scrunched up his face in anger. Thomas realized his stupid mistake and hurried along. "You already knew that. Well, how I got here is a really weird story and I doubt you'll believe it. But I swear I'm telling the truth."  
"Didn't you come on a Berg like the rest of us?" Ponytail asked.

"Berg?" Thomas didn't know what that meant, but he just shook his head and went on. "No. We came out of some underground tunnel about thirty miles or so to the south. Before that we went through something called a Flat Trans. Before that―"  
"Hold it hold it hold it," Blondie said, holding up a hand. "A Flat Trans? I'd shoot you right now, but there's no way you just made that up."

Thomas wrinkled his brow in confusion "Why?"  
"You'd be stupid to try getting away with an obvious lie like that. You came through a Flat Trans?" The man's surprise was obvious.  
Thomas glanced at the other Cranks, both of whom had similar looks of shock on their faces. "Yeah. Why's that so hard to believe?"

"Do you have any idea how expensive Flat Transportation is? Before the flares, it had just been revealed to the public. Only governments and billionaires can afford to use it."  
Thomas shrugged. "Well, I know they have a lot of money, and that's what the guy called it. A Flat Trans. Kind of a gray wall that tingles like ice when you walk through it."  
"What guy?" Ponytail asked.

Thomas had barely started and already his mind was jumbled. How could you tell a story like this? "I think he was from WICKED. They're running us through some kind of experiment or test. I don't really know everything. We ... had our memories wiped out. Some of mine came back, but not a whole lot."

Blondie didn't react for a second, just sat there staring at him. Almost through him, at the wall behind. Finally, he said, "I was a lawyer. Back before the flares and this disease ruined everything. I know when someone's lying. I was very, very good at my job."  
Oddly, Thomas relaxed. "Then you know I'm not―"  
"Yeah, I know. I wanna hear the whole thing. Start talking."

Thomas did. He couldn't say why, but it seemed okay. His instincts told him these Cranks were just like everybody else―sent here to live out their last horrible years succumbing to the Flare. They were just trying to find an advantage, find a way out, like anybody would. And meeting a guy who had special signs about him all over the city was an excellent first step.

He told the story the same way Harriet had told it to Jorge. That seemed so long ago. The concise language allowed him to leave a lot of things out, like the fact that he and Teresa had two friends they could contact unless they were dead. As long as the damned thing would turn back on. He made it sound like Brenda had been with them from the beginning too.

"Would you take this tape off us now?" Teresa demanded. Tall and Ugly was just moving forward to do so when a commotion began upstairs. Screaming, shouts, what sounded like hundreds of people running.

"Another group must've found us," Blondie said, his face suddenly pale. He stood, motioned for the other two to follow him. A few seconds later they were gone, vanishing up a set of stairs into the shadows. A door opened and closed. The chaos above continued.

All of this combined to scare Thomas nearly out of his wits. He looked over at Brenda, who sat perfectly still, listening. Her eyes finally met his gaze. Still gagged, she could only raise her eyebrows. Teresa had closed her eyes, mouth moving silently.

He didn't like their odds being left like this, taped to chairs. There was no way any of the Cranks he'd met that night had a chance against ones like Mr. Nose. "What if a bunch of full-gone Cranks are up there?" he asked.

"We're utterly screwed." Teresa offered.  
Brenda mumbled something through the tape, Thomas couldn't tell what she meant but the gist was probably the same as Teresa's.

Nothing for several seconds. Then a set of footsteps, maybe two, shuffling across the floor above. A loud thump. Another loud thump. Then another. Thomas imagined bodies being thrown on the ground.

The door at the top of the stairs opened.  
Then footsteps, hard and heavy, running down. It was all in shadow, and a cold panic flooded Thomas's body as he waited to see who came down.

Finally, someone stepped into the light.  
Minho. Dirty and bloody, burn marks on his face. Knives in both hands. Minho.  
"You guys look comfy," he said.


	15. Chapter 15

Despite everything he'd been through, Thomas couldn't remember the last time he'd been at such a loss for words. "What ... how ..." He stammered, trying to get something out.  
Minho smiled, a very welcome sight. Especially considering how horrible the guy looked. "We'd just found you. Did you think we were gonna let these bunch of shuck-faces do anything to you? You owe me. Big-time." He walked over and started cutting the tape.

"What do you mean you'd just found us?" Thomas was so happy he wanted to giggle like an idiot. Not only were they rescued, his friends were alive. They were alive!

Minho kept cutting. "Jorge's been leading us through the city―avoiding Cranks, finding food." He finished up with Thomas and went to free Teresa, still talking over his shoulder. "Yesterday morning, we kind of spread out, spying here and there. Frypan was peeking around the corner into that alley up there just as those three shanks pulled a gun on you. He came back, we got mad, started planning our ambush. Most of those shucks were wasted or asleep."

There were more footsteps on the stairs as Minho finished with Teresa and moved on to Brenda. This time it was Rachel who appeared from the shadows, Aris following.

That made Thomas feel even better, despite the pounding in his head. He couldn't wait to tell them about his weird dreams.

"Ya look like you've been through hell. We did try to contact you but it wouldn't work." Rachel was smiling as she walked over to them.

"You'd better tell us what you got up to later." Aris helped Teresa up, hugged her quickly. "Sounds like quite a story."

Thomas took the hand Rachel offered him, the movement making his head spin. She noticed and kept hold of his hand until he steadied.

"Come on, don't want those prisoners upstairs thinking they can take us." Minho started towards the stairs, Brenda had already gone.

The smell hit Thomas before he even entered the room where they'd danced.  
Like sweat and vomit.  
Bodies littered the floor, some sleeping, some huddled together and shivering; some even looked dead. Jorge, Newt and Harriet were there, standing guard, slowly turning in circles with knives drawn and pointing.

Thomas saw the other Gladers, too. Though his head still throbbed, he felt a rush of relief and excitement. "What happened to you guys! Where have you been?"  
"Hey, it's Thomas!" Frypan roared. "As ugly and alive as ever!"  
Newt came up to him, gave a sincere smile. "Glad you're not bloody dead, Tommy. I'm really, really glad."

"You too." Thomas realized with a weird numbness that this was what his life had become. This was how you greeted people after a day or two apart. "Has everyone made it so far? Where'd you guys go? How'd you get here?"  
Newt nodded. "Still got all of us. Plus Jorge."  
Thomas's questions came faster than anyone could answer. "Any sign of Barkley and the rest of them? Were they the ones who set off the explosion?"

Jorge answered―Thomas saw that he stood closest to the door, holding a very nasty-looking sword that was currently resting on the shoulder of Tall and Ugly himself. Ponytail was next to him, and they were both curled up on the ground. "Haven't seen 'em since. We got away pretty quickly, and they're too scared to come deeper into the city."

The sight of Tall and Ugly had set off a small alarm inside Thomas. Blondie. Where was Blondie? How would Minho and the others have dealt with his gun? He looked around but couldn't find him anywhere in the room.

"Minho," Thomas whispered, then motioned for him to come closer. Once he and Newt were both right next to him, he leaned in. "The guy with really short blond hair. Seemed like the leader. What happened to him?"  
Minho shrugged and looked at Newt to answer.

"Must've got out," Newt replied. "A handful did―we couldn't stop all of them."  
"Why?" Minho asked. "You worried about him?"  
Thomas looked around, lowered his voice even further. "He had a gun. He's the only one I've seen with something worse than a knife. And he wasn't very nice." 

"Who gives a klunk?" Minho said. "We'll be out of this stupid city in an hour. And we should go. Now."  
That sounded like the best idea Thomas had heard in days. "Okay, I want to get out of here before he comes back."  
"Listen up!" Minho called out as he stepped away, walking through the crowd. "We're leaving now. Don't follow us, you'll be fine. Follow us, you'll be dead. Pretty easy choice, don't ya think?"

The Gladers, plus Brenda and Jorge, slowly filed out the door into the alley. Thomas stood with Teresa, Rachel and Aris near the back of the group. At the front Minho was shouting about how there was only another mile of the city left, then there wouldn't be any Cranks to deal with. That sounded great.

"Hey!"

The shout came from behind Thomas, loud and screechy, filled with more than a hint of lunacy. Thomas spun around to see Blondie standing down on the bottom step, by the open door, his arm extended. His white-knuckled fingers held the gun, surprisingly steady and calm. It was pointed directly at Thomas.

Before anyone could move he fired, an explosion that rocked the narrow alley with a thunderous boom.  
Pure pain ripped through Thomas's left shoulder.

The impact almost knocked him to the ground, but, similarly as when he had been Stung by Grievers, his friends were there to catch him. Rachel pulled a piece of cloth from her pack and pressed it to the wound, cursing. Aris was calling for the medis..

Somewhere the gun fired again, then the sound of metal clattering across cement and punching. Out of the corner of his eye Thomas noticed that Minho was punching the crap out of Blondie.

Thomas finally gazed down at the damage, Rachel having removed her hand to take a look herself. What he saw there made his heart double its pace.

A small hole in his shirt revealed a gooey red blob right in the meaty part above his armpit, blood pouring from the wound. It hurt. It hurt bad. If he'd thought his headache downstairs had been tough, this was like three or four of those, all smashed into a coil of pain right there in his shoulder. And spreading through the rest of his body.

"Don't look at it, look at me." Teresa instructed, pushing his head to face her. The pressure Rachel was putting on the injury doubled the agony but Thomas was thankful for her anyway.

It hurt like nothing he'd ever felt before. The world around him faded another few degrees.

Pass out, he urged himself. Please pass out, make it go away.

"Stay with me." Teresa was saying, Thomas tried to focus on her, hold her gaze, but the world was fading fast.  
Voices came from a distance again, just like his own had on the dance floor after being drugged.

"I can get that sucker out of him." This was Jorge, of all people. "But I'll need a fire."  
"We can't do this here." Was that Newt?  
"Let's get out of this shuck city." Definitely Minho.

"All right. Help me carry him." Aris, somewhere far away Rachel and Teresa were agreeing.  
Hands gripping him from underneath, grasping his legs. The pain. Someone saying something about the count of three. The pain. It really, really hurt. One. The pain. Two. Ouch. Three!

He rose toward the sky, and the pain exploded anew, fresh and raw.  
Then his wish to pass out came true and darkness washed his troubles away.

Thomas awoke laying on the ground, a rock digging into his back. Voices were whispering nearby, easily recognisable as Rachel, Aris and Teresa, but he couldn't discern what they were saying.  
A fire licked and spit somewhere close. He felt the heat wafting across his body, hot wind through hot air.

Someone said, "You better hold him down. Legs and arms."  
Though his mind still floated in fog, those words didn't sound good. Hands were pinning his limbs  
A flash of light on silver in his vision, the fading sun's reflection on ... a knife? Was it glowing red?

"This is gonna hurt somethin' awful." No idea who said it.  
He heard the hiss right before a billion pounds of dynamite exploded in his shoulder.  
Everything went dark again.

It was a long time before he woke again, but he didn't know how he could tell. Someone held his hand, it had to be Teresa or Rachel. Who else?

The three voices were there again, and now Thomas could focus enough to hear a little of what they said.

"Blood poisoning, Harriet says. She told me that was what happened to Ximena. Took her days to die." That was Aris. Thomas was vaguely aware that he didn't know a girl called Ximena.

"You need antibiotics or something for that. We've got over-the-counter pain meds. It's forty miles to the Safe Haven, we can make that in four days." Rachel now.

"But will he last that long." That was Teresa, she sounded the closest, and very tired. In fact they all did. Thomas wanted to tell them that he'd try his best but he couldn't summon his voice.

The intense pain of before had been replaced. In some ways, he now felt worse. Something like an illness crept through the inner workings of his body. A gnawing, itching filthiness. Something foul, like maggots squirming through his veins and the hollows of his bones and between his muscles. Eating away at him.

It hurt, but now it was more of an ache. Deep and raw. His stomach, gurgly and unstable, fire in his veins.  
He didn't know how he knew, but he was sure of it. Something was wrong.  
The word infection popped up in his mind, then stayed there.

He drifted off.

The sunrise woke Thomas in the morning. He noticed the cool air of early morning on his skin, which gave him the briefest moment of pleasure.

Then he became fully aware of the throbbing pain that consumed his body, dwelling in every last molecule. It no longer had anything to do with his shoulder and the bullet wound. Something terrible had gone wrong with his entire system.  
Infection. That word again.

He didn't know how he'd make it through the next five minutes. Or the next hour. How could he possibly go through an entire day? Then sleep and start the whole thing all over again? Despair sucked at him, an empty, yawning void that threatened to pull him down into an awful abyss. A panic-laced craziness struck him. Suffusing it all, the pain.

That was when things got bizarre.  
The others heard it before he did. Minho and everyone else were suddenly scrambling, searching for something, many of them scanning the sky. The sky? Why would they be doing that?  
Someone―Jorge, he thought―yelled the word Berg.

Then Thomas heard it. A deep thrumming, full of heavy thumps. It grew louder before he even realized what was going on, and soon it felt as though the noise were inside his skull, rattling his jaw and eardrums and sluicing down his spine. A constant, steady pounding, like the world's largest drums; behind it all, the massive hum of heavy machinery. A wind picked up, and at first Thomas worried that a storm was starting again, but the sky was perfectly blue. Not a cloud to be seen.

The noise worsened his pain, made him begin to shut down again. But he fought it, desperate to know the source of the sounds. Minho shouted something, pointed to the north. Thomas hurt too much to turn and look. The wind grew stronger, gusting across him, ripping at his clothes. Dust flew and clouded the air.

Panic seized Thomas now. Two people, dressed in the strangest outfits he'd ever seen. One-piece, baggy and dark green―letters he couldn't read scrawled across the chest. Goggles covering their faces. No, not goggles. Some kind of gas mask. They looked hideous and alien. They looked evil, like giant, demented, human-eating insects wrapped in plastic.

One of them grabbed his legs by the ankles. The other put his hands under him, gripped him by the armpits, and Thomas screamed. They lifted, and pain went coursing through his body. He'd almost grown used to the agony by now, but this felt even worse. It hurt too much to struggle, so he went limp.

Then they were moving, carrying him, and for the first time, Thomas's eyes focused enough to read the letters on the chest of the person at his feet.  
WICKED.  
Darkness threatened to take him again. He let it, but the pain went with him.


	16. Chapter 16

Again Thomas woke to blinding white light, but he could instantly tell that it was artificial. He was no longer in the Scorch. Where had the Berg taken him? Had he even left it?

 _Teresa. Rachel. Aris._ He tried to call out for them but there was no response. He was entirely cut off.

He heard voices―more like whispers. He couldn't understand a word. Too soft, just out-of-reach enough that they were impossible to decipher.

He heard the click and clack of metal against metal. Small sounds, and the first thing he thought of was medical instruments. Scalpels and those little rods with mirrors on the end. These images swam up from the murkiness of his memory bank, and combining them with the light, he knew.

He'd been taken to a hospital. A hospital. The last thing he could ever imagine existing anywhere in the Scorch. Or had he been taken away? Far away? Through a Flat Trans, maybe?

A shadow crossed the light, and Thomas opened his eyes. Someone was looking down at him, dressed in the same ridiculous outfit as those who'd brought him here. The gas mask, or whatever it was. Big goggles. Behind the protective glass, he saw dark eyes focused on him. A woman's eyes, though he didn't know how he could tell.

"Can you hear me?" she asked. Yes, a woman, even though the mask muffled her voice.  
Thomas tried to nod, didn't know if he actually did or not.

"This wasn't supposed to happen." She'd pulled her head back a bit and looked away, which made Thomas think she hadn't meant that comment for him. "How'd a working gun get in the city? You have any idea the amount of rust and gunk must've been on that bullet? Not to mention the germs."

She sounded very angry.  
A man replied. "Just get on with it. We have to send him back. Quickly."  
Thomas barely had time to process what they were saying. A new pain blossomed in his shoulder, unbearable.

He passed out for the umpteenth time.

Awake again.

Something was off. He couldn't tell what. The same light shone from the same spot above; he looked to the side this time instead of closing his eyes. He could see better, focus more. Silver squares of ceiling tile, a steel contraption with all kinds of dials and switches and monitors. None of it made sense.

Then it hit him. Hit him with such shock and wonder that he scarcely believed it could be true.  
He felt no pain. None. Nothing at all.

No people stood around him. No crazy green alien suits, no goggles, no one sticking scalpels in his shoulder. He seemed to be alone, and the absence of pain was pure ecstasy. He didn't know it was possible to feel this good.

It wasn't. Had to be a drug.  
He dozed off.  
He stirred at the sound of soft voices, though it came through the haze of his drugged stupor.

Somehow he knew enough to keep his eyes shut, see if he could learn anything about the people who'd taken him. The people who'd evidently fixed him up and rid his body of the infection.

A man was talking. "Are we sure this doesn't screw anything up?"  
"I'm positive." This from a woman. "Well, as positive as I can be. If anything, it may stimulate a pattern in the killzone that we hadn't expected. A bonus, possibly? I can't imagine it leading him or anyone else in a direction that would prevent the other patterns we're looking for."

"Dear God above, I hope you're right," the man responded.  
Another woman spoke, her voice high, almost crystalline. "How many of the ones left do you think are still viable Candidates?" Thomas sensed the capital letter in that word―Candidates. Confused, he tried to remain still, listen.

"We're down to four or five," the first woman answered. "Thomas here is by far our greatest hope. He responds really sharply to the Variables. Wait, I think I just saw his eyes move."

Thomas froze, tried to stare straight ahead into the darkness of his eyelids. It was hard, but he forced himself to breathe evenly, as if asleep. He didn't know exactly what these people were talking about, but he desperately wanted to hear more. Knew he needed to hear more.

"Who cares if he's listening?" the man asked. "He couldn't possibly understand enough to affect his responses one way or the other. It'll do him good to know we made a huge exception to get that infection out of him. That WICKED will do what it has to when necessary."

The high-pitched-voice lady laughed, one of the most pleasant sounds Thomas had ever heard. "If you're listening, Thomas, don't get too excited. We're about to dump you right back where we took you from."

The drugs coursing through Thomas's veins seemed to surge, and he felt himself fading into bliss. He tried to open his eyes, but couldn't. Before he drifted off he did hear one last thing, from the first woman. Something very odd.  
"It's what you would've wanted us to do."

When Thomas woke up again he was in the air hanging from a Berg, tied tightly to a canvas litter. He was dropped to the ground, surrounded by the other Gladers.

Someone knelt by his side. Pulled him into a tight hug. Teresa.

Everyone was talking at once, single questions indecipherable in the din.

"Give him some air for goodness' sake." That was Harriet, looking as in charge and tired of life as ever.

Most of the Gladers backed off but Teresa didn't go anywhere. Rachel and Aris were with her of course, hugging him and asking what had happened.

"I don't know, they let me hear some things but I think they were trying to manipulate me." It seemed to be all they ever did.

"You're probably right. Now we'd better get outta this sun." Teresa worked at the straps that still held him to the odd bed-thing. Thomas was deep in thought as she did, the things were tight.

How many people had died in the Scorch, the Maze? What was different for him just because he'd been shot by a rusty bullet? They'd actively tried to murder Rachel for Christ's sake, and she couldn't be an inferior subject compared to him. Could she?

Everyone else had trekked back under a small decrepit hut, it looked like a strong wind would blow the place apart. The Gladers all lay down, crammed like sardines as they had in the Homestead, ready to sleep the day away.

Thomas and his friends claimed a corner. They had to talk, about so many things, and they could do it telepathically so no one heard. He knew he would have to explain to the group as a whole sooner or later but he wouldn't worry about that now.

 _We've five days to get to the mountains. And it's thirty miles to get there_. Aris started the conversation. It was doable within those parameters but could be a tight squeeze.

Teresa squeezed Thomas's hand, and he was instantly, inexplicably reminded of their drug-fuelled kiss, how good it had felt. Crap. He would have to talk to her about that too.

 _It was WICKED that came and got me. I kept passing out, but they took me to some doctors who totally fixed me up. I heard them saying something about how it wasn't supposed to happen, how the gun had been a factor they hadn't expected. The bullet set off a nasty infection in me, and I guess they felt pretty strongly that it wasn't time for me to die._ Thomas continued to explain everything he had heard, three blank faces stared back at him.

 _That's gotta be the strangest thing yet_. Rachel stated, his remembrance had been fractured, and it hadn't made much sense in the beginning. It was a good thing he was talking to the people who understood him the most.

They sat in silence for a few moments. Eventually Aris and Rachel left to go and sleep, curling on top of their sheet against the wall. It was amazing they still had the thing.

Teresa stayed beside Thomas, sleep called to him, but he had to get everything straight with her.

 _Teresa I...What happened in that weird party...I didn't mean…_ He couldn't string together a coherent sentence, but somehow she smiled at him.

 _We were drugged, it doesn't matter._ She leaned forward, pecked his lips quickly. An indescribable feeling started in his chest, somehow stronger than in the club, even if the kiss had been nowhere near as intense.

 _But for what it's worth, I quite enjoy it_.

Thomas didn't even try to wipe the stupid grin off his face.

They lay down close together, and Thomas slept better than he had in a long time.

* * *

 **A/N: Please tell me what you think of this, because I don't think I'm any good at writing romance. This might not be updated till Monday because I'm going to write everything since the tunnel collapse in Rachel's POV and have to type up fifty pages of Biology.**

 **Comments and reviews get virtual cookies.**


	17. Chapter 17

That evening everyone woke early, ready to hear what information Thomas had gleaned during his strange time in the stranger hospital. Teresa told him he had been away for two days.

Most of what he told the rest of the group was repeating the story he had told Rachel, Aris and Teresa, occasionally explaining a Glader word or concept to Brenda or Jorge.

Everyone looked frustrated with the vagueness of his account. His three best friends understood what he said and meant almost before he opened his mouth but this didn't extend to anyone else, and even they had been confused. He told them about the signs too, but apparently they had all seen them.

"For what it's worth I think you'll do a better job than this shuckface." Harriet gestured to Minho who looked wounded.

"I haven't done too bad." He started to try and defend himself but Newt, Miyoko and Sonya all pounced.

"You deliberately pissed off a guy who wanted to eat our eyeballs."

"You flirt with half-Gone Cranks."

This continued for a few moments, Thomas got the idea that they were releasing a lot of pent up frustration.

"I think that's enough." Harriet laughed. "If we go through every stupid thing this shank has done or recommended just this week we'll be here all night."

"I hate you all." Minho complained but shut up.

"I don't wanna be leader. Don't worry." Thomas really meant that. There was no way he would be any good at it.

Newt got to his feet, his face in a deep scowl of concentration. "So we're all potential candidates for something. And maybe the purpose of all the buggin' klunk we've been through is to weed out those who don't qualify. But for some reason the whole gun-and-rusty-bullet thing wasn't part of the ... normal tests. Or Variables, whatever. If Thomas is gonna croak and die, it wasn't supposed to come from a bloody infection."  
Thomas pursed his lips and nodded. Sounded like a great summary to him.

"What this means is that they're watching us," Minho said. "Just like they did in the Maze. Has anyone seen a beetle blade running around anywhere?"  
Several Gladers shook their heads.  
"What the hell's a beetle blade?" Jorge asked.  
Thomas answered. "Little mechanical lizard things that spied on us with cameras in the Maze."

Jorge rolled his eyes. "Of course. Sorry I asked."  
"The Maze was definitely some kind of indoor facility," Aris said. "But there's just no way we're inside something anymore. Though they could be using satellites or long-range cameras, I guess."

Jorge cleared his throat. "What is it about Thomas that makes him so special? Those signs in the city about him being the real leader, them swooping in here and saving his butt when he got all sicky-sicky." He looked at Thomas. "I'm not trying to be mean, muchacho―I'm just curious. What makes you better than the rest of your buddies?"

"I'm not special," Thomas said, even though he knew he was hiding something. He just didn't know what. "You heard what they said. We have lots of ways to die out here, but that gun shouldn't be one of them. I think they would've saved anybody who'd gotten shot. It wasn't about me―it was the bullet that messed things up."  
"Still," Jorge replied with a smirk. "I think I'll stay close to you from here on."  
A few more discussions broke out, but Minho didn't let them last long, insisting that they had to get up and marching.

No one spoke much, just trudged towards the mountains that never seemed to get any closer. Thirty miles, five days, Safe Haven, Cure, survival.

"You dream up any more memories." Rachel suddenly spoke up, "cause I've gotta tell you about these voices I keep hearing."

"Voices. What voices?" Thomas hadn't known anything about that, but guessed Aris and Teresa did from their lack of surprise.

"Weird voices, they say 'WICKED is Good' that I should have died. That we're all gonna die. They said you were going to die." Rachel continued to tell him some of the specific messages she could remember hearing. How one of them just after they were separated had caused her to have a breakdown similar to after nearly being killed by Beth.

Thomas told them about the two dreams he had had, the one where they were all younger and had assumptively just sent the first subjects into the Maze, and the other where he and Teresa eavesdropped on a discussion about the final variable. The one that had killed Chuck and almost Rachel too.

"I get voices and you get dreams. And I'd bet money if I had any that WICKED's behind all of it." Rachel's idea regarding the memory dreams was one he had almost forgotten. They could be memories deliberately returned to him as 'variables', or they could be entirely fabricated. That did not raise his spirits.

They talked about everything for the next hour or so, and Thomas found that if he didn't keep staring at them the mountains did seem to get closer.

Despite that the night dragged on and on, until eventually Harriet shouted that it was time to hide behind a shelf of rocks to sleep off the day.

As they sat down Rachel slammed her hands over her ears, even though the only sounds were Gladers rummaging for food.

"What is it? The voices again?" Aris put a hand on her shoulder but she didn't respond, rocking back and forth.

"There is no safe haven. There is no cure. The Flare or Cranks will get you all." She said in a creepy, robotic voice, her eyes empty of everything. For a moment she stayed completely still, mouth slightly open, but then awareness returned to her expression.

"They're getting worse. The voices, they're controlling me. I swear." Rachel looked certainly distressed, Thomas suddenly understood Aris's disturbed tone when he had described her breakdown when they were separated. This girl who was losing control in front of him didn't resemble the Rachel he knew well.

She was crying now, but doing her best to speak clearly. She was saying she was going crazy, that the voices wouldn't go away. Sometimes her voice was the disturbing monotone, proclaiming that they would all die at the hands of Cranks and monsters, but that continued to quickly revert to Rachel herself, who was becoming increasingly more hysterical with every lapse.

Several Gladers are staring at them now, but Thomas didn't care.

"Go find Emme and ask for some of those pills she had before." Aris instructed Teresa, who quickly got up, going to talk to one of the medis.

Aris then returned to trying to soothe Rachel, Thomas scooted closer to them and managed to hear more of what she said.

"Why won't they stop?" The Controlled voice seemed to have gone completely.

"I don't know. But they'll cure us when we get to the Safe Haven. It's only a few more days." Aris reached out to hug her and she let him, Thomas wanted to comfort her but didn't know how to help.

Teresa came back, two small blue pills in her hand. Rachel swallowed them dry, she seemed to be calming down and whatever the drugs were sped up the process. She slept in a few moments.

"That was worse than the last time wasn't it?" Thomas asked Aris, he was still holding Rachel, she looked so peaceful compared to before, like a normal sixteen year old girl.

"Much worse." He looks haunted. Thomas wondered what they could do if it kept happening, the medis wouldn't have enough pills for five days and it was certainly a bad idea to give her that many.

The sense of hopelessness was overwhelming, but the tiredness slowly began to win out. Teresa curled up on the sand, quickly falling asleep. Thomas lay down next to her, and he dreamed.

 _He is fifteen in this memory, but still doesn't know how he can tell._

 _He and Teresa are standing in front of a massive bank of screens, each one showing various images from the Glade and the Maze. Some of the views are moving, and he knows why. These camera shots are coming from beetle blades, and every once in a while they have to change position. When they do, it's like looking through the eyes of a rat._

 _On the opposite side of the large room he can see Rachel and Aris, they are whispering to each other, looking tired._  
 _"I can't believe they're all dead," Teresa says._

 _Thomas is confused. Once again he doesn't quite understand what's happening. He's inside this boy who's supposed to be him, but he doesn't know what Teresa's talking about. Obviously not the Gladers―on one screen he can see Minho and Newt walking toward the forest; on another, Gally sitting on a bench with Beth trying to talk to him. Then Alby yelling at someone Thomas doesn't recognize, Harriet imploring him to calm down._

 _"We knew it would happen," he finally responds, not sure why he said it._

 _"It's still hard to take." They aren't looking at each other, just analyzing the screens. "Now it's up to us. And the people in the barracks."_  
 _"That's a good thing," Thomas says._  
 _"I almost feel as sorry for them as I do for the Gladers. Almost."_

 _Thomas wonders what this means as his younger dream version clears his throat. "Do you think we've learned enough? Do you really think we can pull this off with all the original Creators dead?"_  
 _"We have to, Tom." Teresa steps over to him and grabs his hand. He looks down at her but he can't read her expression. "Everything's in place. We have a year to train the replacements and get ready."_

 _"But it's not right. How can we ask them to―"Teresa rolls her eyes and squeezes his hand so hard it hurts. "They know what they're getting into. No more talking like that."_

 _"Yeah." Somehow Thomas knows this version of himself in the vision he's seeing feels dead inside. His words mean nothing. "All that matters now are the patterns. The killzone. Nothing else."_  
 _Teresa nodded. "No matter how many die or get hurt. If the Variables don't work, they'll end up the same anyway. Everyone will."_

 _"The patterns," Thomas says._  
 _Teresa squeezes his hand. "The patterns."_

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry this chapter took a while, I couldn't find any virtual cookies but I have a recipe for awesome real ones if anyone wants it.**


	18. Chapter 18

It was Rachel who woke Thomas and Teresa the next morning, she was almost herself again but not quite. He thought about the Control WICKED could use on them, what it could make them do.

Alby had almost strangled himself.

Gally had killed Chuck.

Beth had almost killed Rachel.

Now Rachel was almost becoming a mouthpiece for their awful messages of doom. Who was going to be next?

"Are you alright?" Thomas asked her.

"I think so." She ran a hand through her hair, it had grown a little now, but was full of the dust and dirt of the Scorch that covered everything. She wasn't alright, that much was obvious.

He hugged her, and she hung on for a moment before pulling away.

"Is there anything you…" He tried, but she shook her head.

"Thank you. If I do I'll let you know."

They began the night's march just like before, nothing major happening. Thomas kept sneaking glances at Rachel but she seemed to have recovered, joking with Teresa about something he couldn't hear.

Around an hour into walking he told them about his dream, patterns and the original Creators being dead.

"That's five now?" Aris clarified and Thomas nodded, wondering how many more there would be, what they would show him, what they meant.

He decided to stop thinking about that, it had already been debated and they had gotten nowhere, there was a better use for his mental energy.

The group started through a pass in the mountains that was treacherous in the dark. Every so often cursing would signify that someone had fallen. Thomas kept one hand on the rock face and the other on Teresa's arm, wondering if he was supporting her, himself, or both.

The tiredness of marching and Rachel's breakdown had prevented them from having a real private talk since the day he returned from the Berg. The memory of their brief kiss made him smile like an idiot until she demanded to know what was funny.

"Just the absurdity of this whole thing."

"You've got that right. Now come on, we're falling behind." They were bringing up the rear of the group which meant that was easy to do with the difficult terrain.

It took a couple of moments to catch up, Rachel shouting over her shoulder for them to hurry, she was definitely herself again now. Thomas hoped it would last.

The Pass seemed to go on _forever_ , and nothing of note happened, not that night, or the next.

It was the middle of the second night of marching when shouts from the front of the group indicated that they had finally reached the exit.

The group clustered in a wide swath of broken rock that fanned out from the narrow canyon of the Pass before dropping in a steep slope to the bottom of the mountain far below. The three-quarter moon shone down on the valley in front of them, making it look dark purple and eerie. And very flat. With nothing for miles and miles but sparse, dead land.  
Absolutely nothing.  
No sign of anything that could be a safe haven. And they were supposed to be within a few miles of it. 

"Well that's just great. Nothing." Aris said, an idea that many Gladers started to repeat. Thomas had hoped there would be some indication of success, now they were so close.  
"Maybe we just can't see it." He didn't know who said it, but he knew every person there understood exactly why she did. Trying to hold on to hope.

"Yeah," Harriet added, sounding upbeat. "It might just be another entrance to one of their underground tunnels, like what we started in. I'm sure it's there."

"It'd better be." Sonya muttered darkly.  
"How many more miles do you think we have left?" Newt asked her, squinting in the darkness.

"Can't be more than ten, based on where we started and how far the man said we had to go," Harriet answered. "Probably more like seven or eight. I thought we'd come out over here and we'd see a nice big building with a smiley face on it."

Thomas had been searching the darkness the whole time, but he couldn't see anything, either. Just a sea of black stretching to the horizon, where it seemed like a curtain of stars had been pulled down.

"Well," Minho announced. "Not much choice but to keep heading north. We should've known better than to expect something easy. Maybe we can make it to the bottom of the mountain by sunrise. Sleep on flat ground."

Descending the mountain was hellish, the path was full of switchbacks and had a tendency to disintegrate under one's feet. Teresa fell a half-dozen times, Thomas more. Two days, he thought, to get to the Safe Haven, and they were so close, plenty of time.

Eventually they got to the bottom, immediately making camp. They had enough time to sleep for as long as they wanted, but something told Thomas that that security was soon going to slip away from them.

He mentioned this to the other three and they all agreed.

"I'm betting some sort of monster." Rachel joked.

"Don't give them ideas." Aris warned her. "They won't be able to put Grievers out here and they said this part would be harder. I don't want to see anything worse than a Griever. Ever."

That was an idea Thomas could get behind.

"Let's worry about it in the morning." Teresa said, lying down in the sand. Another good point.

Thomas dropped down next to her, a tiredness he hadn't been aware of overtook him, and he slept before he was aware his eyes had closed.

 _Thomas is sixteen. He's standing in front of Teresa, Rachel and Aris._ _  
_ _All three of them are looking at him with grim faces. Teresa is crying._

 _Aris and Rachel look angry, they hold onto each other's hands like they never want to let go but know they have to soon._ _  
_ _  
_ _"It's time to go," Thomas says._ _  
_ _Aris nods. "Into the Swipe, then into the Maze."_ _  
_ _Teresa does nothing but wipe away some tears._ _  
_ _  
_ _Thomas hugs Aris, then Rachel, but he does it quickly. The two of them move away, whispering with their foreheads pressed together._ _  
_ _  
_ _Then Teresa rushes forward and pulls him into an embrace. She's sobbing, and Thomas realizes that he's also crying. His tears wet her hair as he hugs her tightly._ _  
_ _  
_ _"You have to go now," Aris says, but Thomas can tell he doesn't want to._ _  
_ _Thomas looks at him. Waits. Tries to enjoy this moment with Teresa, with all of them. His last moment of full memory. They won't be like this again for a very long time._ _  
_ _  
_ _Teresa looks up at him. "It's going to work. It's all going to work."_ _  
_ _"I know," Thomas says. He feels a sadness that makes every last bit of him ache._ _  
_ _  
_ _Aris opens a door and beckons for Thomas to follow him, Rachel is there too, but Teresa stays behind. Thomas follows, but manages to look back at Teresa one last time. Tries to look hopeful._ _  
_ _  
_ _"See ya tomorrow," he says._ _  
_ _Which is true, and it hurts. He could take forgetting almost everything else, but the four of them have been together so long he can only guess how they'll function apart._

 _Rachel and Thomas walk through the door, it shuts with a definite finality. Nothing will be the same now, not ever again._

 _Rachel turns to him, takes his hand._

 _"Together." She says, eyes glistening._

 _"Until the end."_ _The dream faded._


	19. Chapter 19

It was general shouting and commotion that woke Thomas. Something was wrong, more than usual.

"Hey! Newt!" He shouted to the older boy. "What's going on?"

"No one knows. It's like time sped up whilst we were asleep. We've only got three and a half hours to get to the Safe Haven." He gestured to Teresa, Aris and Rachel. Thomas was impressed they still slept but saw they weren't the only ones. "Wake them up. We've gotta go."

 _Guy's wake up! We gotta go!_ He sent the message directly into their minds, not entirely sure whether or not it would work.

Aris sat straight up as if he had received an electric shock.

"Man. Do not ever do that again." He rubbed at his temples. "What's going on?"

"No one knows. But we've only got three hours left."

"So we've been asleep two days?" Rachel rubbed sleep from her eyes. It seemed so, but Thomas didn't feel any of the negative effects from sleeping too long like he had when he woke from the Changing. He felt better than he could ever remember having been.

"Good. We'll finally be out of this hell." Teresa stood, drinking a huge gulp of water from her canteen. They didn't exactly have to worry about supplies any more. Now it was do or die.

"And I agree with Aris. Don't do that, whatever it was."

Apparently sending wake up messages was a breach of telepathic etiquette.

Everyone in the group reported the strange odd, but good, feeling Thomas had noticed. It was obvious that WICKED had somehow interfered, but he noticed that Brenda and Jorge also reported the same thing. There was no way they could be Controlled by WICKED.

But it was possible that they had just sprayed them all with knockout gas from a Berg.

There was little time to process it all. Harriet and Minho had the group up and running less than three minutes after Thomas had woken.

Nothing but flat wasteland stretched ahead of them, they only had to continue for maybe seven more miles. Then they would be safe.

Like it's gonna be that easy. Thomas reminded himself. No way there wasn't something waiting for them, a last test.

He remembered Rachel and Aris's speculation about new monsters the night before and prayed they had been wrong.

The sky didn't lighten much as morning ticked on. Clouds blew in, gray and thick, so thick that Thomas wouldn't have had any idea of the time if it weren't for his watch.  
Clouds. Last time that had happened ...  
Maybe this storm wouldn't be so bad. Maybe.

 _Another lightning storm_. Rachel was using her angry-and-going-to-punch-something voice. How on Earth did she convey that telepathically?

 _Let's just hope we can beat it._ Teresa replied, but she sounded unsure.

Dust filled the air and the wind was so strong it was difficult to run. The storm would be upon them faster than Thomas had originally thought.

Within minutes he could hardly see his friends beside him, or the rest of the group in front. They were all only vague silhouettes bent double against the wind.

 _Well this is fun_. Rachel commented dryly.

 _Definitely, that was me you just hit._ Aris sent an image of an eye roll.

 _Sorry._

 _You guys do realise we can hear you?_ Teresa interjected.

 _Yes, why? Do you mind?_

 _Certainly not._ Thomas told them, hearing them argue good naturedly meant that they were okay.

After a time Thomas couldn't measure, due to the dust and wind making it impossible for him to check the remaining time on his watch, the group stopped. He almost collided with Minho, who was staring at something on the ground.

The object was a simple stick poking out of the arid ground. An orange strip of ribbon hung from the top, whipping in the wind. Letters were printed on the thin banner. It had the words SAFE HAVEN printed on it.

"You have got to be kidding me." Miyoko shook her head. She looked angry, that Thomas could understand.

"How much longer do we have?" Teresa asked him. "My watch isn't working."

"Half an hour." That surprised Thomas, he didn't think they had been running that long but time seemed to have become like water, slipping through their fingers at WICKED's will.

"That storms gonna be on top of us in a few minutes hermanos." Jorge was saying, Brenda beside him. Thomas realised how long it had been since he spoke to either of them.

"I thought you said there'd be a cure here?" Brenda looked disappointed, almost scared. He remembered her terror of the disease, what she had made Thomas and Teresa promise her.

"We thought there would be. Turns out we've all been played." Teresa put a hand on her shoulder. Thomas was surprised that Jorge wasn't as angry at them as he had promised to be. But they didn't truly know there was nothing until time was up.

The noise of the various conversations was incredibly irritating. Rachel had walked to the edge of the group and sat on the ground, Aris following her. Thomas hoped she wasn't going to have another breakdown now.

He took Teresa's hand and they went to join their friends.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I just needed away from all that shouting." Rachel was saying. "Why would they make us do this if there's nothing here?"

No answers, there were never any answers.

The four of them sat in a tight knot, simply taking comfort from each others presences, physical and telepathic, as they had done so often.

"Something bad's gonna happen." Teresa stated it as the fact they all knew it was.

It was as if her words triggered it all.

"What's that!" Minho shouted, jumping to his feet; he pointed at a spot maybe twenty feet from the stick that had apparently been their whole aim.  
Thomas turned to look as he stood up, alarm igniting inside him. The terror on Minho's face had been unmistakable.

About thirty feet from the group, a large section of the desert ground was ... opening. A perfect square―maybe fifteen feet wide―pivoted on a diagonal axis as the dirt-packed side slowly spun away from them and what had lain underneath rose up to replace it. The sound of groaning, twisting steel pierced the air, louder than the roaring wind. Soon the rotating square had fully flipped, and where once had been desert ground now lay a section of black material, with an odd object sitting on top of it.

It was oblong and white with rounded edges. Thomas had seen something just like it before. Several of them, in fact. After they'd escaped the Maze and entered the huge chamber where the Grievers had come from, they'd seen several of these coffinlike containers. He hadn't had much time to think about it then, but seeing it now, he thought those must've been where the Grievers stayed―slept?―when not hunting humans in the Maze.

Before he had time to react, more sections of the desert floor―surrounding their group in a large circle―started to rotate open like dark, gaping jaws.  
Dozens of them.

"Everyone get up and arm yourselves!" Harriet shouted.

Rachel handed Thomas a very long knife as she pushed herself off the ground. Her expression held the same anger he had seen in his last dream. And where had she been keeping two of those knives. She had one for herself too, so did Aris and Teresa. They must have found them when they were separated, or when Thomas had been on the Berg.

The squeal of metal was deafening as the square sections slowly spun on their axles. Thomas had his hands to his ears, trying to keep the sound out. The others in the group were doing the same. All around them, scattered evenly and fully encircling the area in which they stood, patches of desert ground rotated until they disappeared, each one eventually replaced with a large black square when it finally settled with a loud clank, one of those bulbous white coffins resting on top. At least thirty in all.

The scream of metal rubbing against metal stopped. No one spoke. The wind ripped across the land, blowing dust and dirt in streams across the rounded containers. It made a gritty pinging sound. There was so much of it, it blended into a noise that made Thomas's spine itch; he had to squint to keep stuff out of his eyes. Nothing else had moved since the foreign, almost alien objects had been revealed. There was only that sound and wind and cold and stinging eyes.

In the sky above, thunder crackled and boomed, and those flashes of light grew brighter. The wind tore at everyone's clothes and hair and everything smelled wet but dusty―a strange combination. Thomas checked the time again. "We've only got twenty-five minutes. We're either gonna be fighting Grievers or we need to get inside those big coffins at the right time. Maybe they're the―"

A sharp hiss cut through the air from all directions. The sound pierced Thomas's eardrums and he clamped his hands to the sides of his head again. Movement on the perimeter surrounding them caught his attention, and he watched carefully what was happening with the large white pods.

A line of dark blue light had appeared on one side of each container, then expanded as the top half of the object began to move upward, opening on hinges like the lid of a coffin. It made no sound, at least not enough to be heard over the rushing wind and rumbling thunder. Thomas sensed the Gladers and the others slowly moving closer together, forming a tighter knot. Everyone was trying to get as far away from the pods as possible―and soon they were a coiled pack of bodies encircled by the thirty or so rounded white containers.

The lids continued moving until they'd all swung open and dropped to the ground. Something bulky rested inside each vessel. Thomas couldn't make out much, but from where he stood he couldn't see anything like the odd appendages of the Grievers. Nothing moved, but he knew not to let his guard down.

Thomas was just about to move when something slipped out of one of the pods. A collective gasp escaped those closest to Thomas, and he turned for a better look. Things were moving in all the pods, things he couldn't quite understand at first. Whatever they were, they were definitely coming out of their oblong homes. Thomas focused on the pod nearest to him, strained his eyes to discern what exactly he was about to face.

A misshapen arm hung over the edge, and its hand dangled a few inches above the ground. On it were four disfigured fingers―stubs of sickly beige flesh―none of them the same length. They wiggled and grasped for something that wasn't there, as if the creature inside was searching to get a grip to pull itself out. The arm was covered with wrinkles and lumps, and there was something completely strange right where what passed for an elbow was located. A perfectly rounded protrusion or growth, maybe four inches in diameter, glowing bright orange.  
It looked like the thing had a lightbulb glued to its arm.

The monster continued to emerge. A leg flopped out, its foot a fleshy mass, four knobs of toes wriggling as much as its fingers. And on the knee, another one of those impossible orange spheres of light, seemingly growing right out of its skin.  
"What is that thing?" Minho shouted over the noise of the surging storm.

No one answered. Thomas was dazed, staring at the creature―mesmerized and terrified at the same time. He did finally look away long enough to see that similar monsters were coming out of every pod―all at the same pace―then returned his attention to the closest one.

It had somehow gained purchase enough with its right arm and leg to begin pulling the rest of its body out. Thomas looked on in horror as the abominable thing flopped and wiggled until it lurched over the edge of the open pod and stumbled to the ground. Roughly human-shaped, though at least a couple of feet taller than anyone around Thomas, its body was naked and thick, pockmarked and wrinkled. Most disturbing were more of those bulbous growths, maybe two dozen total, spread over the thing's body and glowing with brilliant orange light. Several on its chest and back. One on each elbow and knee―the bulb on the right knee had busted in a flurry of sparks when the creature landed on the ground―and several sticking out of a big lump of ... what had to be a head, though it didn't have any eyes, nose, mouth or ears. No hair, either.

The monster got to its feet, swayed a bit as it balanced, then turned to face the group of humans. A quick glance around showed that each pod had delivered its creature, all of them now standing in a circle around the Gladers.

In unison, the creatures raised their arms until they pointed toward the sky. Then, all at once, thin blades shot out of the tips of their stubby fingers, out of their toes, out of their shoulders. The flashes of lightning in the sky glittered off their surface, sharp and gleaming silver. Though there was no sign of any kind of mouth, a deathly, creepy moan emanated from their bodies―it was a sound Thomas could feel more than hear. And it had to be loud to be heard over the terrible thunder.

 _Maybe Grievers would've been better,_ Teresa said inside Thomas's mind.  
 _Well, they're enough alike that it's obvious who created these things,_ he said back, straining to stay calm.  
Minho turned quickly and faced the crowd of still-gaping people surrounding Thomas. "There's about one for each of us! Grab whatever you got for a weapon!"

Almost as if they'd heard the challenge, the lightbulb creatures started moving, walking forward. Their first couple of steps were lumbering, but then they recovered, growing steady and strong and agile. Coming closer with every step.

"As if this hasn't been hard enough. Now we have to kill whatever these are." Aris sounded as angry as Rachel, and the same type of anger.

Minho and Harriet were positioning everyone in a large circle, facing the creatures. They would have to fight them, WICKED had made them, and this had to be the final test before the real Safe Haven was revealed to them.

Everyone seemed to be facing a monster, the abomination they would have to kill to gain a place in the real Safe Haven. There was no way everyone would survive this. He thought of how he had begged the universe that last night in the Glade, begged it not to take Rachel, Teresa, Aris, Flo, Chuck. And the universe had seemed determined to leave him with only Teresa and Aris. The only higher power was WICKED, the only future the one they could make for themselves when they escaped this place.

The monsters were twenty-five feet away, hands holding weapons shook. A boy of perhaps fourteen was crying, Thomas had to wonder how someone so young could have lasted this long. Then again, the oldest were only maybe seventeen. Harriet and Sonya were only fifteen.

"Now!" Minho yelled, brandishing blades. "Charge them!"

Then the world was chaos. It was nearly impossible to see anything in the dusty darkness. All Thomas could do was focus on his enemy.

Right before he reached the creature, Thomas made a decision. He dropped to slide on his knees and shins and swung the swordlike weapon in an arc behind and around him, slamming the blade into the monster's left leg with a full and powerful two-handed thrust. The knife cut an inch into its skin but then clanked against something hard enough to send a jolt shivering up both of Thomas's arms.

The creature didn't move, didn't retract, didn't let out any sort of sound, human or inhuman. Instead it swiped downward with both blade-studded hands where Thomas now knelt before it, his sword embedded in the monster's flesh. Thomas jerked it free and lunged backward just as those blades clattered against each other where his head had been. He fell on his back and scooted away from the creature as it took two steps forward, kicking out with the knives on its feet, barely missing Thomas.

The monster let out a roar this time―a sound almost exactly like the haunted moans of the Grievers―and dropped to the ground, thrashing its arms, trying to impale Thomas. Thomas spun away, rolling three times as he heard metal tips scraping along the dirt-packed ground. He finally took a chance and jumped to his feet, immediately sprinting several yards away before turning around, sword gripped in his hands. The creature was just getting to its own feet, slicing at the air with its stubby bladed fingers.

Thomas sucked in huge gulps of air and could see the others battling in his peripheral vision. Minho jabbing and stabbing with knives in both hands, the monster actually taking steps backward, away from him. Newt scrambling across the ground, the creature he fought lumbering after him, obviously injured. Slowing. Harriet was almost a blur, stabbing at a creature then jumping back before it could reach her, several times a second.

Sonya had already killed her opponent, it seemed, she fought back to back with Miyoko, shouting instructions lost to the wind.

Thomas couldn't see Rachel or Aris anywhere, but their presences hovered in the back of his mind, so they couldn't be in too much trouble.

Teresa was the closest to him, jumping and dodging and poking her foe with the point of her blade. Why was she doing that? Her monster seemed to be badly hurt as well.

 _The bulbs. You have to pop them all._ Her voice in his mind, a message she was projecting to everyone in the telepathic network. Thomas wished it stretched further than the four of them, that he could warn everyone.

But he could only worry about himself, hope others were smart enough to figure it out.

He popped a bulb and the monster slowed, the light dying instantly. A glance at the battle showed that some others had figured it out, but not many. Two bodies lay on the ground, a boy and girl, Thomas didn't recognise either of them.

With every bulb that popped the monster got slower, clumsier. Had it really been that easy? There were only a few left when the world turned into light and sound.

A wave of invisible power knocked him over and he fell flat onto his stomach, the sword clattering away from him. The creature fell, too, and a burnt smell singed the air. Thomas rolled onto his side to look, saw a massive black hole in the ground, charred and smoking. A bladed foot and hand from one of the monsters lay on the hole's edge. No sign of the rest of the body.

It'd been a lightning strike. Right behind him. The storm had finally broken.

Lightning was everywhere, people screaming, the air filled with the stink of burning flesh.

The creature he'd been fighting was dead, half of its body blackened, the other half gone. Teresa stood over her foe, slamming the butt of her spear down and smashing the last bulb; its sparks died with a hiss. Minho was on the ground, but slowly getting to his feet. Newt stood there, breathing in and out, deep heaving breaths. Frypan doubled over and threw up. Some were lying on the ground; others―like Brenda and Jorge―still fighting the monsters. Thunder boomed all around them and lightning glinted in the rain.

He moved towards Teresa, pulled her to her feet.

 _We need to find shelter._ He told her and she nodded.

 _How much longer?_

 _Ten minutes_. They only had to last ten minutes in this storm.

 _We should get inside the pods._ She pointed at the closest one, which still lay open like a perfectly cut eggshell, its halves surely full of water by this point.

He liked the idea. _What if we can't close it?_  
 _Got any better plans?_  
 _No_. He grabbed her hand and started running.

 _We need to tell the others!_ she said as they approached the pod.  
 _They'll figure it out._ He knew they couldn't wait―more strikes could hit them at any second. They'd all be dead by the time he and Teresa tried to communicate with anyone. He had to trust his friends to save themselves. Knew he could trust them.

At least Rachel and Aris will be safe, they can hear us. A part of himself whispered, a part that Thomas hated. Those were two deaths he knew would break him.

They reached the pod just as several bolts of electricity came zigzagging down from the sky, striking in blistering explosions all around them. Dirt and rain flew everywhere; Thomas's ears rang. He looked inside the left half of the container, saw nothing but a small pool of dirty water. A horrible smell wafted up from it.  
"Hurry!" he yelled as he climbed in.

Teresa followed him. They didn't need to speak to know what to do next. They both got on their knees, then leaned forward to grab the far end of the other half―it had a rubbery lining, easy to grip. Thomas braced his midsection on the lip of the pod, then pulled up, straining with every bit of strength he had left. The other half lifted and swung toward them.

Just as Thomas was repositioning himself to sit, Brenda and Jorge ran up to them. Thomas felt a rush of relief at seeing them okay.  
"Is there room for us?" Jorge screamed over the noise of the storm.  
"Get in!" Teresa yelled back in answer.

The two of them slipped over the edge and splashed into the large container, a tight fit but manageable. Thomas scooted to the far end to give them more room, holding the cover just barely open―the rain drummed on its outer surface. Once everyone was settled, he and Teresa ducked their heads and let the pod close completely. Other than the hollow thrum of the rain and the distant explosions of lightning and the gasping of breaths, it grew relatively silent. Though Thomas still heard that same ringing in his ears.

He could only hope his other friends had made it safely to pods of their own.  
"Thanks for letting us in, muchachos," Jorge said when everyone seemed to have caught their breath.  
"Of course," Thomas replied. The darkness inside the container was absolute, but he could hear the others.

 _You guys okay?_ It was Teresa sending a message out, Thomas knew better than to answer.

 _Yeah. Can't time start speeding up again now?_ Rachel, of course that was Rachel.

Brenda spoke up. "Thought you might've had second thoughts about bringing us along. Would've been a good chance to get rid of us."

"Please," Thomas muttered. He was too tired to care how it sounded. Everyone had almost died, and they might not be out of the woods yet.  
"So is this our safe haven?" Teresa asked.

Thomas clicked the little light button on his watch; they had seven minutes till the time was up. "Right now, I sure hope so. Maybe in a few minutes these shuck squares of land will spin around and drop us into some nice comfy room where we can all live happily ever after. Or not."

Crack!

Thomas yelped―something had slammed into the top of the pod and made the loudest sound he'd ever heard, an earsplitting crash. A small hole―just a sliver of gray light―had appeared in the ceiling of their shelter, beads of water forming and dropping quickly.  
"Had to be lightning," Teresa said.

Thomas rubbed his ears, the ringing worse now. "Couple more of those and well be right back where we started." His voice sounded hollow.  
Another check of the watch. Five minutes. The water drip-drip-dripped into the puddle; that horrible smell lingered; the bells in Thomas's head lessened.

"This isn't quite what I imagined, hermanos," Jorge said. "Thought we'd show up here and you'd convince the big bosses to take us in. Give us that cure. Didn't think we'd be holed up in a stinking bathtub waiting to be electrocuted."

"How much longer?" Teresa asked.  
Thomas looked. "Three minutes."  
Outside, the storm raged, bursts of lightning slamming into the ground, the rain pounding.

Another boom and crack shook the pod, widened the split in the ceiling enough that water began rushing in, splashing all over Brenda and Jorge. Something hissed and steam seeped in as well, the lightning having heated up the outside material.  
"We're not gonna last much longer no matter what happens!" Brenda shouted. "It's almost worse sitting here and waiting for it!"

"There's only two minutes left!" Thomas yelled back at her. "Just hold on!"  
A sound started up outside. Faint at first, barely discernible over the noises of the storm. A humming. Deep and low. It grew in volume, seemed to vibrate Thomas's whole body.

"What is that?" Teresa asked.  
"No idea," Thomas answered. "But based on our day, I'm sure it's not good. We just have to last another minute or so."

 _Come on. There's a Berg, but it's not gonna wait._ Aris's message broke Thomas's resolve.

"We need to open this thing. Aris says it's time to go." He announced for the benefit of those without freaky mind powers.

"Isn't Aris the quiet kid who only talks to you and Rachel and holds her hand when she goes all wacko? You trust him?" Teresa gave Jorge a look to say that he should never talk about their friends like that again.

"With our lives. Now come on."

They got the lid off and were instantly soaked with rain. The huge Berg touched down as the last second ticked off the clock, hatch beginning to open.

All around him Gladers dashed for the safety of the ship, the creatures were all dead, from fighting or lightning.

As they approached the Berg it's thrusters activated, beginning to lift off.

 _Seriously_. Rachel's voice in his mind, Thomas hadn't seen her or Aris since the start of the battle with the bulb monsters, he desperately wanted to, really know they were alright.

The Berg had reached a point three feet off the ground, slowly rising and turning at the same time, ready at any second to shift those thrusters and zip away. A couple of Gladers and three girls reached it first, dove onto the platform of the open cargo door. Still it rose. Others reached it, climbed on, scrambled inside.

Newt, Miyoko, Beth, Frypan, Sonya, Rachel. Thomas took stock of everyone he knew who had survived, wondered if that was what Harriet did.

Then Thomas made it with Teresa. The open hatch was chest-high now. He jumped and pushed his hands down on the flat metal, arms stiff, stomach pressed against the thick edge. Swung his right leg up, got leverage, rolled his body fully onto the door. The ship, still rising. Others climbing on, reaching to pull others up. Teresa, halfway on, trying to find a handhold.

Thomas reached out and grabbed her hand, pulled her in. She collapsed on top of him, shared a brief look of victory. Then she was off, and both of them approached the edge of the door to see if anyone needed help.

The Berg was now six feet above the ground, starting to tilt. Three people still hung from the edge. Harriet and Newt were pulling a girl in. Minho was helping Aris. But Brenda held on only with her hands, her body dangling as she kicked her feet and tried to pull herself up.

Thomas dropped to his stomach and scooted closer, reached out and grabbed her right arm. Teresa got the other one. The metal of the cargo door was wet and slick; when he pulled on Brenda he started sliding out, but then stopped abruptly. A quick look behind him revealed that Jorge had planted his butt and feet, holding tightly to both Thomas and Teresa.

Thomas looked back at Brenda, started pulling again. With Teresa's help, she finally came over the edge enough for her stomach to gain purchase; it was easy from there. As she crawled on and farther in, Thomas took another look outside at the ground, slowly moving away. Nothing but those horrific creatures, lifeless and wet, full of saggy pockets of flesh that had once been full and brightly lit. A few dead human bodies, but not many, and no one Thomas was close to.

He scooted backward, away from the edge, feeling an immense amount of relief. They'd made it, most of them. They'd made it through Cranks and lightning and hideous monsters. They'd made it. He hugged Rachel, then Aris, then Teresa, hanging on to her for the longest.

They were alive, still, and it was over.

The door closed when the last girl was dragged aboard by two boys. A clang taking away the wind and dust and rain so completely they could have all been a dream.

It was over. All of it.

* * *

 **A/N: Just an epilogue chapter now. Shoutout to anyone who has kept reading this long.**


	20. Chapter 20

A man came to talk to them, said that they would be cured as soon as they returned to headquarters. They were provided with food, showers, medical supplies. The staff didn't remark on the presence of Brenda and Jorge, which was odd but Thomas was too tired to care. He knew they couldn't trust these people but that could wait until morning, until they had been cured.

They said there'd be no more games, but Thomas didn't even have to look around to know that not a single Glader believed them.

There were no beds but there was a sort of rec room with couches and carpets where most people had chosen to bed down.

Thomas ended up with Teresa, Rachel and Aris, like he always did, lying curled together on a long couch. It wasn't exactly comfortable but it was heaven compared to the Scorch.

Aris and Rachel slept quickly, peacefully, Thomas wished he could join them but his mind was full of thoughts, despite his resolve to let it wait until tomorrow.

"What're you thinking about?" Teresa turned to look at him slowly, having been sandwiched in maybe a foot of space between Thomas and Aris.

"Everything. My mind won't shut up and I just wanna sleep." Thomas knew he sounded childish but didn't care.

"What's your happiest memory? It doesn't have to be something big." She said it with a conviction. Thomas pretended to think for a moment but there was an instantaneous clear answer in his mind.

"When I'd got back from that weird Berg trip. When you kissed me." He felt embarrassed to admit it to her, even though there was no reason to be.

"I'd say that's mine too." She leaned over, pressed her lips to his. The feeling was intense, incredible, it burned away every thought, good and bad.

They stayed like that until they absolutely had to come apart, gasping for breath. Thomas wished they were somewhere private.

"Does that help?" Teresa smiled at him, face flushed and more beautiful than he'd ever seen her.

"Yes." It was the only word he could really get out.

"We'll have to do it again some time." Her voice was matter of fact and Thomas looked forward to 'some time' more than he would have thought possible.

His thoughts were quiet now, and finally, he slept.

* * *

The room where Thomas awoke was empty. He wasn't on the Berg, and he was completely alone.

He lay on the ground, in a room. The walls, the ceiling, the floor―everything was white. The floor beneath him was spongy, hard and smooth but with enough give to be comfortable. He looked at the walls―they were padded, with large buttoned indentations across them, about four feet apart. Bright light shone down from a rectangle in the ceiling, too high for him to reach. The place had a clean smell to it, like ammonia and soap. Thomas looked down to see that even his clothes had no color: a T-shirt, cotton pants, socks.

A brown desk sat about a dozen feet in front of him. It was the only thing in the entire room that wasn't white. Old and battered and scratched, it had a bare wooden chair pushed into the sitting well on the other side. Behind that was the door, padded like the walls.

Thomas felt a strange calm. Instinct told him he should be on his feet, screaming for help. He should be banging on the door. But he knew that door wouldn't open. He knew no one would listen.  
He was in the Box all over again, should've known better than to get his hopes up.

But in the Box Rachel had been next to him, and she wasn't here.

 _Tom._ It wasn't Rachel, wasn't Teresa, wasn't Aris. It was a girl, Thomas thought of every girl he knew but couldn't place the voice.

 _Hey, who are you?_ he responded.  
 _Are you ... okay?_ She sounded troubled. No, felt troubled. Why didn't she answer his question?  
 _Huh? Yeah, I'm fine. Why?_

 _Just thought you'd be a little surprised right now._  
He felt a stab of confusion. _What are you talking about?_  
 _You're about to understand more. Very soon now._

 _Who are you?_ He repeated, a tinge of desperation creeping into his voice.  
 _It's me, Tom. It's Brenda. Things are about to get bad for you._

Brenda. That wasn't possible. She didn't work for WICKED, only Rachel, Aris and Teresa could speak to him like this. Maybe she was a voice like one of the ones Rachel heard, a fabrication piped into his brain to freak him out.

I'm not going to panic, he told himself. It had to be another phase of the Trials, and this time he'd fight to change things―to end it all. It was strange, but just knowing he had a plan, that he'd do whatever it took to find freedom, caused a surprising calm to pass over him.

 _Teresa? Rachel? Aris?_ He repeated their names again and again, screamed for them. It was no use. They were gone...Brenda was gone.  
He stood and walked over to the desk, but two feet in front of it he ran into an invisible wall. A barrier, just like back in the dormitory.

Thomas didn't let the panic rise. Didn't let fear overcome him. He took a deep breath, walked back toward the corner of the room, then sat down and leaned into it. Closed his eyes and relaxed.

Waited. Fell asleep.

 _Tom? Tom!_  
He didn't know how many times she said it before he finally responded. _Teresa?_ He woke with a jolt, looked around and remembered the white room. _Where are you?_ It was certainly her now.

They put us in another dormitory after the Berg landed. We've been here a few days, just sitting around doing nothing. Tom, what happened to you?  
Teresa was worried―scared, even. That much he knew for sure. As for himself, he mostly felt confused. A few days? What―  
They took you away as soon the Berg landed. They keep telling us it was too late―that the Flare is too rooted in you. They said you've gotten crazy and violent.

Thomas tried to hold it together, tried not to think about how WICKED could wipe memories. _Teresa ... it's just another part of the Trials. They've got me locked up in this white room. But ... you've been there for days? How many?_

 _Tom, it's been almost a week._  
There was fear in her voice. How had it been so long? Was it like in the desert, when they had slept three days in what had felt like a few hours?

He wanted to talk back to her, ask her what was happening to the rest of them but she was gone before he could.

What was this.

Then without warning, the voice of yet another woman appeared. Not Teresa, not Rachel, not Brenda. No one Thomas had ever known. It was unlike any voice Thomas had ever heard. Completely icy and unemotional.

 _WICKED is Good._

Then his mind was finally, irrevocably empty.

* * *

WICKED Memorandum, Date 232.2.13, Time 21:13

TO: My Associates

FROM: Ava Paige, Chancellor

RE: SCORCH TRIALS

This is not a time to let emotions interfere with the task at hand. Yes, some events have gone in a direction we didn't foresee. Not all is ideal―things have gone wrong―but we've made tremendous progress and have collected many of the needed patterns. I feel a great amount of hope.

Our elites continue to impress. A2 especially, but this is no change to what we have always predicted. It seems that the survival of B2 has proved more valuable than her death would have been, with the specific variables conducted on her having collected many vital patterns from both herself and subject B1.

I expect all of us to maintain our professional demeanor and remember our purpose. The lives of so many people rest in the hands of so few. This is why it's an especially important time for vigilance and focus.

The days to come are fundamental to this study, and I have every confidence that when we restore their memories, every one of our subjects will be ready for what we plan to ask of them. We still have the Candidates we need. The final pieces will be found and put into place.

The future of the human race outweighs all. Every death and every sacrifice are well worth the ultimate outcome. The end of this monumental effort is coming, and I believe that the process will work. That we'll have our patterns. That we'll have our blueprint. That we'll have our cure.

The Psychs are deliberating even now. When they say the time is right, we'll remove the Swipe and tell our remaining subjects if they are―or are not―immune to the Flare.

That's all for now.

* * *

 **A/N: This story is now complete! I will start on The Death Cure later this week and I also plan to finally continue my version of The Kill Order. They're going to start to link up soon but not if I don't write it.**


End file.
